Self Medication: Maura
by AdmHawthorne
Summary: While Jane is battling her inner issues, Maura tries to find a way to help. This is written as a companion piece to "Self Medication", and the storyline runs concurrently with that story. If you haven't read it yet, it may help to read it first.
1. Chapter 1

**Cowritten with Googlemouth.**

**This story happens concurrently with "Self Medication". We wanted to give you Maura's side of things, her point of view.**

**As usual (and always), the characters are not ours. We just borrowed them, but we promise to give them back (though Jane's outfit may actually fit better. Googs has a thing for making certain everything is altered to fit correctly. I don't know...) Your reviews are treasured and loved.**

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><p>At first, she hadn't even realized that her feelings should be hurt. Maura never liked to assume anything, so she simply filled in the blanks with likelihoods rather than ascribe the behavior to any one thing. Jane could simply be tired out with her body's need to heal. She might be listening to her iPod and couldn't hear Maura knocking. Perhaps it had been a long day at physical therapy, and Jane just wanted quiet for a while. Maybe she was in the middle of a shower. She could even have a date over that Maura just couldn't see at the moment, and didn't want to be interrupted (that one started to occur to Maura only after Jane mentioned 'the Casey incident,' and persisted long after the point at which Jane's crankiness let Maura know that there was no way Jane was having actual sex, or she'd have been in a much better mood).<p>

There were a dozen legitimate reasons why Jane might not answer the door or the phone. There were a dozen reasons why Jane's eyes might be bloodshot. There were dozens of reasons why Jane might socially withdraw to the point at which they only saw one another at crime scenes and autopsies, just as at the beginning of their friendship. There were a dozen reasons why she might not ask Maura over for movie nights or hanging out, why she might refuse Maura's invitations to exhibits, symphonies, dinners out, double dates, or any of the other excuses Maura made to spend time with her best friend.

But enough was enough. If Jane simply didn't want to be her friend anymore, Maura decided, she could at least have the decency to tell her to her face.

So Maura began calling or going by at different times of the evening, determined to get _some_ response out of her.

After about a month of being ignored, Maura's freakish intelligence finally started to penetrate her own denial. Her best friend needed her and, for some reason, wasn't reaching out to her. Maura finally became willing to see the signs of alcohol use – by now, abuse – and once she considered it honestly, was ashamed that it had not occurred to her sooner_._


	2. Chapter 2

Maura drove up to Jane's apartment and parked the car, noting dispassionately that the light to the front room was still on. Maybe that meant something and maybe it didn't. She had been fooled by lights before. Often, in fact. Sometimes she was just sure Jane was awake and home, but there was no answer. Other times, the lights were off when she knocked, heard Jane mumbling something from behind the door about being tired, but Jane never came to the door. Sometimes she even saw the outline of Jane's head and shoulders sticking up above the couch, or her tall torso moving slowly and sluggishly above the kitchen counter, but had received no answer to her knocking and calling.

It was happening again tonight.

Maura knocked off and on for several minutes, then tried the doorbell for several more. Her phone calls had gone unanswered, but she tried again just to be sure, and left a message this time. "Jane? It's Maura. Again. Look, if you're upset with me, I want to understand why. It's just that I think there's something wrong, and I want to help. Please open the door. I want to see your face and know that you're okay. Even if you only open the door to tell me to go away, I'll try to accept that."

She hung up the phone and knocked again, then tried the doorbell. It wasn't going to work, she decided, and dug in her purse for Jane's key, the one given to her for emergencies. In her worry, the caramel-blonde's fingers became clumsy, and she dropped the keys on the doorstep with a loud jangle. "Drat," she swore mildly, and tried again. The lock clicked; the door slid open until the deadbolt snapped, alerting Maura to the fact that the door would not budge any further than the few inches it had already opened – not even enough space to let Joe Friday out. "Jane?" she called in a soft voice, already laced with worry. "Jane, I know you're there. This latch can't be fastened from outside. Let me in."

Silence met her request, however, just as it had the night before, and the night before that. Just as on those other nights, the honey-brunette had remained outside her best friend's apartment, disturbing the peace until a neighbor came outside to inform her that twenty minutes of pleading should probably be the limit on how long anyone should have to listen to someone talking to a closed door.

Hazel eyes filled with tears as her voice weakened from attempted cheerfulness to overt concern, scolding to sniffling. Maura checked the windows in the front, then circled around the back of the building to see if Jane had forgotten to secure the back door. _Well, at least she's not leaving herself open to burglary,_ thought the medical examiner briefly and bitterly as she fumbled for her cell phone, scrolling down the list of their mutual friends as she contemplated which one to rouse from sleep, whom to force into worrying with her. Angela? She would come immediately, then work herself into a useless state of worry, much like Maura's own. Frank had been incommunicado for weeks. Definitely not Tommy; he would spot the problem and even know how to handle it, but Jane would be so ashamed at having followed her younger brother down this path that nothing productive would come of it.

Frankie was problematic, too. He wouldn't be able to keep anything from the Rizzoli parents, and was also connected to Jane's professional life, so the news of Jane's drinking would eventually get around the station. That was also why Maura could not choose Vince Korsak or Barry Frost, despite the fact that either one would have a better chance at getting through to Jane where Maura couldn't. Still, Maura's finger hovered over Barry's name. As her current partner, surely it was his duty and privilege, more than anyone else's save Maura herself, to help Jane?

Maura shut off the phone with a sigh, knowing she would not call anyone, would not entrust to any of them the embarrassment she knew her best friend would feel at having her new hobby exposed before a coworker or a family member. Jane would lose respect from Barry or Vince, and she would lose so much more from the family members that had already dealt with the many woes that Tommy Rizzoli had brought onto them in years and months past.

The petite woman went back to sit in her car until her lachrymal glands stopped overproducing long enough to let her drive home, disappointed and worried. She showered, dressed for bed, poured herself a glass of her cheapest and least-favorite wine, took one sip, and stared at the remainder until she grew disgusted, poured it out, and went to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Despite a remarkably good night's sleep, Maura's body had not yet recovered fully from the long succession of bad nights, nor had she quite gotten past the contrariness of dressing deliberately below her formerly-regular standard. The dusky mauve dress worn beneath Maura's lab coat was lovely, as usual, though the cut was not quite as flattering as what she usually wore. It didn't quite take full advantage of her curves, and, if she was honest, the color wasn't quite perfect for her skin tone. Despite the unquestionably high quality, it almost looked off the rack. An expensive rack, sure, but a rack nonetheless, and without the additional tailoring Maura regularly had done in order to achieve the custom fit she preferred. Her beige pumps had a slightly lower heel; they were slightly chunkier than her usual.

Her hair suffered as well from the recent neglect. It was just as shiny and smooth as usual, but not quite as bouncy, and it wanted a quick touch-up to her cut and color. Even the peach-toned nail polish did not go with the pale pink-purple of the dress at all.

When not giving her compliments disguised as insults, Jane often said she looked like a million bucks. Maura evaluated herself in the full-length bedroom mirror, turned this way and that, and said with a certain dry satisfaction, "You look like a _hundred_ bucks. Not like it matters."

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><p>"Maura, good morning, would you like a cup of tea?" Doctor Vincent Sorin asked, his gentle baritone voice reverberating lightly through the morning quiet of his office. "I must admit," he continued, his slightly British accent more pronounced as he talked conversationally with his patient, "I was surprised that you asked for an extra session for this morning." He gestured for her to take a seat where she pleased in his office, waiting to see if she would choose the dark leather sofa or the over-stuffed chairs in the corner of the room. Her preferences varied depending on her needs for that particular week.<p>

Immediately after the shooting, Maura had come to Dr. Sorin with a straight back, emotions tightly held together, energetic in her pursuit of mental peace. Increasingly of late, however, her posture had become tighter, not looser, eyes downcast, voice subdued. "Please, and thank you for seeing me this early," she replied this morning, quieter than ever, purse clutched to her abdomen for a little longer before she could hang it up on the rack. "I know it's not a true emergency on my part, Doctor, but I just… I need…" As had happened with growing frequency during their sessions, the self-restraint she practiced so assiduously slipped off like a coat at the door, and she found her eyes misting and her throat closing, precursors to tears. So tense was her vocal mechanism that she could only whisper, not speak aloud. "Jane was drunk again last night."

"I see," the middle aged man said, voice devoid of anything to indicate his particular thoughts on the matter. Instead, he led her to the dark burgundy overstuffed chairs in the corner before going to the oak side bar to make a cup of tea for each of them. "Would you like to discuss your feelings regarding this specific incident," he asked, accustomed to his patient being exceptionally in tune with her emotional needs, "or your overall feelings regarding the broader scope of what is happening?" He set the delicate white china cup and saucer down next to a box of tissue on the table beside her before taking up residence in the opposite chair, tea cup and saucer in hand.

"Both?" Maura replied as she took her seat at the edge of the chair she preferred, hands clasped together on her lap as if she was being graded on comportment. As had become apparent, however, this was simply her way of sitting, no matter in what emotional state she was immersed. A sip of tea soothed and loosened her throat enough to enable true speech again. "Actually, I think they're the same. I'm having a classic…" At the doctor's raised eyebrow, she lowered her gaze in apology. "I'm sorry. Leave the analyzing to you and speak in small words." The quote came easily; they had been over the concept before of how she hid behind her vast intellect. She took a deep breath. "I miss my best friend. I'm worried, and I feel powerless, and I hurt."

"Have you discussed your feelings and concerns with Jane?" Dr. Sorin set his cup and saucer down, picking up a leather-bound notebook from where it rested on the table beside him and opening it in preparation for notation.

Caramel locks jostled one another as Maura's bowed head shook lightly. "She won't speak to me," explained the petite woman. "She doesn't answer the door or the phone after work anymore at all, unless it's her mother, or if she's on call and it's work. At work, she avoids me entirely except for crime scenes and autopsies. When I ask her to stay after an autopsy and talk to me, or to go out for lunch or coffee, she claims she has other places where she has to be. It's hard to argue when I know that families need her to get justice for their deceased members or when a serial killer needs to be caught before killing again. I hate to whine, or cry, or nag, and I feel like that's what I'm doing. Even though it's for her sake that I want to talk to her these days, I just… We've talked about this before, haven't we? I don't know how to ask, and she's the one suffering for it."

Sorin made a few notations before speaking. "We've also discussed how much responsibility you ought to shoulder on behalf of your friend's personal decisions." Taking a moment to quietly observe his patient, the doctor's jaw flexed. Setting his notebook in his lap, he tilted his salt-and-peppered head slightly to the left, indicating what most would consider genuine curiosity. "Maura, if you were able, sans any perceivable blockade provided by Jane, yourself, or any other outside factor, what would you wish to express to Jane?"

"I would say," Maura began, then stopped, reaching for a tissue. She was a logical person who dealt in facts, and the fact was that the blockades were there. Their removal was entirely hypothetical. "I don't know what I would say. What I _feel_ is that she's hurting herself by drinking instead of accepting help and love from the people who want to give it to her. I'm afraid for her, and I want her to love herself as much as… as much as she is worthy of being loved. She's isolating herself, destroying connections with other people, and engaging in self-destructive behavior and… and I suspect," she was careful not to even use the words 'guess' or 'assume', "negative self-talk. In other words, if she treated another person the way she's been treating herself lately, she'd be considered a primary abuser. I don't want her treating my best friend that way. I want…"

Maura stopped to sniffle, but it was just a cover. Dr. Sorin had taught her the value of I-statements, things such as I feel, I wish, I will, and I want. She used one now. "I want her to treat herself like I would treat her, if she would let me."

"And how would you like to treat her?" Sorin glanced down at his notes, making another brief scribble before glancing back up to the pathologist.

Hazel eyes widened as Maura's breath caught, not forcefully, but perceptibly. She hadn't realized that her statement would lead anywhere, but of course, that was naïve of her. "With understanding and gentleness. She's… Jane would hate hearing this, but I think of her as being fragile. She's been through so much, Dr. Sorin, and I just want to protect her from ever having to experience any of that again. I told you about Charles Hoyt and his apprentices, and then there was Bobby Marino. Jane has come through all of that having to be stronger than she is, tougher than she is. She _is_ tough and strong, the strongest and bravest person I've ever encountered, but she shouldn't have to be that way all the time."

Warming to her topic, Maura gradually forgot to cry, and her diaphragm relaxed enough to let her speak clearly. "I just want her to feel safe somewhere, like she doesn't always have to be on guard. She's such a gentle soul. I want to give her the same compassion that she gives… _gave_ everyone else, before this latest trauma. It seems to me that she's given so much from her own meager store of strength and tenderness, and now that she needs some for herself, there's nothing left; and she won't accept it from anyone else, and I want so much to give it to her. She just can't see it."

Maura dabbed at her eyes, careful not to smear her eye makeup. It was water resistant, but there were limits to its powers. She sighed. "I should never have slept with Byron."

At the seemingly non sequitur comment, Sorin raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, made another note, and asked in his typically neutral tone, "What brings you to this conclusion?"

Introspection had its hold on Maura by now, and so she did not notice Sorin's expression. "Jane once called while we were engaged in intercourse. Since then, she hasn't called me, come over, or initiated a conversation with me. I knew she didn't like him, but I was so selfish that I didn't even consider how it would affect Jane, having her best friend unavailable and having an apparently good time while she was in so much pain."

Pulling pen from paper, Sorin held it in his hand, pushing the top down once to click it closed before asking in a his quiet way, "Maura, on a scale of one to ten where one is least important and ten is most, where would you rate the importance of your relationship with Jane?"

The answer was immediate, requiring no consideration at all. "Ten."

He nodded in acknowledgement of the answer. "Using the same scale, how would you rate yourself?"

This time, Maura's head tilted as her eyebrows drew together. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I understand the…" However, she paused as a possible interpretation occurred to her. "Oh. Yes. Nine."

"Do you feel," he continued, making no show of his thought regarding where Maura placed herself in her own life, "that you relinquish anything – physical, emotional, or otherwise – in order to carry on your relationship with Jane?"

This time, Maura nodded easily. "All relationships are about compromise. Jane took up yoga and running just to spend more time with me, and she's taught me a lot about how to relate to people who didn't grow up with the same social… choreography, I suppose, that I learned. I've opened her mind to trying new things, like foods and social interactions she might not have attempted. And, and, a-and I… Well, I _try_ to be there for her, but she doesn't seem to want to let me do that lately. But I'll be there, when and if she decides she's ready for a friend again. I want so much to be as good to her as she always was to me."

"Maura," Sorin's intonation was patient but stern, "that is not the answer to the question I asked. Let's try again. Do you feel you sacrifice anything for the sake of your relationship with Jane?"

There was a long silence as Maura considered the difference between this wording and the one before, trying to find linguistic clues she had not noticed, some indication of what Sorin wanted. "Either I don't understand what you mean, or my puzzlement is evidence that there is nothing of import that would qualify as a sacrifice. I don't know which is correct." However, Sorin's continued air of expectation caused her to reexamine the question yet again. After an elongated moment she said, "Do you mean Byron?"

Sorin opened to an older page in his notes, glancing down for a brief moment. "Perhaps a different line of thought?" The middle aged man casually picked up his tea cup and took a small sip. "Can you give me one example in your relationship with Jane where you've put your own needs ahead of Jane's and/or your relationship with Jane?"

"Byron," Maura murmured quietly, evidencing regret that bordered on shame. "I put my own stress release ahead of Jane's need for me."

"Why do you feel that your intimate needs are less important than Jane's needs? You yourself have stated many times during our sessions that Jane has other support networks that she could and does turn to when you're not available."

Again, Maura looked mystified. She understood the words, even understood the concepts, but the irrelevance – from her perspective – stymied her. "I… well, but she nearly died. She needed so much more than I did. Nothing happened to me, except that I actually saw _how_ people can wind up on my table. It was very jarring, but I was never directly hurt. Scared, but not… Well, not…" Suddenly, frustration caused Maura to snap out of the timid and defensive position she had felt herself to be in. "Look, you can't equate me being horny with Jane being nearly killed _again._ Besides, Jane doesn't need _other_ support networks. She needs _all_ her supporters, not just some of us. If we really are best friends, which we are, then I have to believe that Jane needs me as much as I need her. And I wasn't there for her, because I was screwing her surgeon. So yes, you bet I consider my need for sex less important than her needs."

Seemingly unmoved by Maura's emotional outburst, Sorin set the empty tea cup down, and cleared his throat. "Maura, as you well know, I never imply anything," he commented as he wrote in his notebook. "However, I believe you have, again, managed to not answer my question." He waited a heartbeat before continuing on. "I asked you about your _intimate_ needs, not your need for _sexual release_."

Struck dumb, Maura stared blankly in Sorin's direction, lips parted but in no way looking as though speech might come out. Her skin became blotchy with redness, and soon her eyes welled and overflowed, leaking surprise and sorrow down her cheeks to drip from her chin and stain the front of her summery dress. It was far longer than she usually was able to be quiet even by effort, before the normally verbose woman whispered hoarsely, "But that's what I have Jane for." Only then did her crying become sound, a long, low moan as she crumpled, spine bowing down over her thighs, and sobbed into helpless hands.

Patiently waiting for Maura to compose herself again, Sorin handed her another tissue. After the sobs had subsided, he asked in his unassuming way, "Is there anything else additionally you'd prefer to provide for Jane?"

Pressing the tissue to her eyes, following it up by a less-than-ladylike nasal application, Maura nodded. "Anything. Everything." She lifted bloodshot eyes towards the therapist, the crying jag having permitted her to discharge enough emotion to achieve some semblance of calm, at least enough to speak clearly again. "But she would do the same for me, if she weren't… hurting this way right now, too. So you don't get to judge me for wanting to give to her right now."

"I'm not here to judge you, Maura. I'm here to help you help yourself." A light, neutral expression on his face, Sorin shifted, crossing his legs and balancing the notebook on his lap. "I want you to consider something. You are placing a great deal of energy into this relationship, I believe it's safe to say. By your own admission, Jane is not putting much, if any, energy into your relationship with her. I understand that you believe the reason for this is because of the current set of circumstances, and I respect your reasoning as always I have. However, you've told me you are here because you want to maintain a healthy mental state."

As he so often did during their sessions, he brought their apparently stream-of-consciousness conversation around to a point that, if one were to know his style, he was likely headed the entire time. "If you are placing the needs of someone else who, by your own observations, is acting in a self-destructive manner, ahead of your own to the point of sacrificing things which help to keep you mentally healthy, how can you adequately help either yourself or Jane?"

A heavy sigh met Sorin's question. Now she understood the point. "I can't, can I?" Maura asked rhetorically. "Now that I've had a best friend, I don't want to be without one. I've become dependent on this relationship. It's uncomfortable to _need_ like this, but now that I do, how do I get what I need? Because what I need and want is Jane. I want my friend back. Not having her is what's hurting me. Whatever I can give her, whatever I can do for her, ultimately is for myself to the exact same extent that it's for Jane. I _am_ being selfish in this case. I don't like that, you know. She's… I don't like feeling that the only reason I'm doing something for Jane is to benefit myself, but that's what I'm doing. This is self-serving, however altruistic it may look from the outside."

Sorin clicked his pen again and wrote more notes. "Those are very valid points you've just made." He handed her yet another tissue. "I want you to do something for yourself. When you've free time today, make a list of things you've given up to be in this relationship, things you've done in order to hold onto your friendship with Jane. Once you've completed the list, take inventory of how many of those things were compromise, how many were truly altruistic, and how many were for some other purpose. I think it would help you to visually see where your actions are most weighted."

Though she did not yet see the point entirely, Maura nodded. She had always been industrious in homework assignments. "I'll bring you the list next week," she promised, and for the final time that hour, dabbed at her eyes. "Thank you, Dr. Sorin.


	4. Chapter 4

Her eyes were dry, and she had to keep blinking over her morning autopsy with Korsak and Crowe. She heard Crowe joking to Korsak about the Queen of the Dead looking like death warmed over, and though Korsak hushed him, she knew that her lack of sleep was affecting her appearance. Her work would be next, if she wasn't careful. All part of the pattern, she knew. Maura knew she was the next best thing to family in Jane's life.

Maura sent Korsak and Crowe away with the information they needed, albeit not a full written report; that would come later in the day. In the meanwhile, she checked the silver-framed mirror in her office, noting the flaws in her appearance. Her mother would have been horrified; had, in fact, noticed during her brief recent visit.

She'd left her spare clothes at home, as well as her touch-up cosmetics, but at least there was something Maura could do about her eyes, after that tearful therapy session early that morning. She went to her office and grabbed the eye drops out of a drawer, then stood with her head tilted way back, trying to use them properly. It was frustrating, trying to hold her lids open while putting something into her eye, which always snapped closed at the last instant, but it gave her a new appreciation for her stellar eyesight. If and when her vision started to deteriorate with age, she silently vowed, she would wear good spectacles with fashionable frames rather than put up with contact lenses.

Still trying, she was momentarily distracted by Jane's familiar, hoarse voice. "Maura?" There was a pause, and the medical examiner thought she heard mumbling. "Maura, come on, I brought you a present!"

"In here," Maura called, her words distorted slightly by the facial contortions she was making. Her head was tilted back, mouth slightly open, upper lip drawn down over her teeth. It looked ridiculous, she knew, but it would eventually result in at least one drop landing in each eye. One hand held her eye open, while the other squeezed the bottle above it, still hopeful that this time it would work.

She heard Jane's approach and smelled the coffee, but still had to ask. In between doctoring one eye and the next, "What did you bring me?" Drip, drip. "Is it too big to fit in your locker at the gym? Could you have brought it to yoga this morning?" It was a dig. Jane hadn't made it to yoga in quite some time.

"Funny, but I already told you I wasn't going back there after the Jorge thing." Jane stepped closer and set the drinks down. "I brought your favorite coffee down, and I came for the Bowen report. Frost said you called up earlier." She was quiet, likely sipping her own coffee as Maura dab at her face to catch the stray liquid from the eye drops. "Maura, why are you using eye drops on a Friday morning? You have a late night or something?" She leaned against the desk, one arm crossed over her torso, the other holding her cup to her face. "You find another guy to help you keep away the common cold?" The detective chuckled. "I mean, you seem a little off this morning."

Maura glanced towards her best friend before turning her attention back to the eye drops. Once she had tossed the tissue away and finished speed-blinking to clear the extra moisture, she turned her full attention back towards Jane, taking in the tailored suit, shined boots, slightly more put-together hair, cheerful demeanor, and three cups of coffee in the carrier. "A late night, yes, but not with a guy," she retorted. It occurred to her that Jane could ask if Maura was with a woman, or simply assume that she had stayed awake reading. She almost did hope for some crack at her, some show of interest, but it did not come.

Clunky heels clicked dully as she walked past Jane to round her desk and take her seat. On the way, with one smooth movement, she took one cup from the carrier and dropped the little bottle into Jane's blazer pocket. "I'm using eye drops for the same reason you should," she added in curt explanation, deciding that it was time to broach the topic that had been festering within her. She hated confrontation, but Jane needed her to start one, and maybe Jane would care enough to at least stay and fight about it. An argument was better than no contact at all. "It stops people from thinking I'm hung over. By the way, I know I've told you this before, but I really like that scented spray you use. It works beautifully with your body chemistry."

"My eyes are not blood shot, Maura. They're fine. I checked them in the mirror this morning, and I… wait a minute," Jane followed the honey-brunette to the lounge area of the office and settled on her usual place on the sofa. "What do you mean 'for the same reason I should be using them'? What is that supposed to mean?" The detective narrowed her eyes, frowning as she sipped her coffee.

As the pathologist drew the little bottle of hand sanitizer from her drawer of the coffee table and rubbed a dollop into her hands, the she considered the question. "Well… do you want people to assume that you're hung over? I wouldn't like to be thought of in that way. Especially by people who depend on me to be mentally alert and physically fit in order to perform my job to the best of my ability. I'd want my partner and other coworkers to feel confident relying on me." She paused. "Or my friends and family."

In her typical slumped postured position, Jane scowled at the medical examiner. "I don't like what you're implying," she said, voice deathly quiet. "Do you have the Bowen report or not?" She stood, eyes glaring down at the smaller woman, attempting to look intimidating. For once, she failed. Maura didn't feel intimidated, just disappointed. "You know, never mind. Just send them up." With a cool air about her, the detective walked to the desk, picked up the coffee, and headed for the door. "I don't have to sit here and listen to this crap." She turned around, standing in the doorframe of the office. "I do my job just fine, thank you. Who was the one to bust that child molester? Who was the one to collar the perp in the last three cases? Who? Me. That's who."

The glare sharpened; this time Maura did feel just a little bit unnerved. If she had gone too far, too fast, Jane was perfectly capable of physically overpowering her. Had she progressed to the stage of alcohol dependency in which she was also emotionally capable of deciding to do so? "You have a lot of nerve saying anything about how well I do my job." Jane snapped, her hands beginning to visible shake, her complexion paling slightly. "You're supposed to be my friend, Maura, not someone else I have to prove… man, just… whatever. I'm out of here." In a huff, she turned and stomped toward the stairs.

Left to her Karim Rashid orange-red chair and her hand sanitizer, Maura considered all that she'd said, all that Jane had said. Her head tilted to one side as she ran over every word, every nuance of vocal inflection or posture, and the speed at which Jane had left her office.

As so often happened in her life, she found herself saying the right things, long past the window of meaningful opportunity. "But you admit having to check in the mirror to know they weren't bloodshot," she replied to a statement from minutes previously, followed by, "I never said you were hung over, only that people could assume it." Finally, the smaller woman closed the overdue commentary with one for herself instead of Jane. "That could have gone better. Or much worse."


	5. Chapter 5

"…Then I realized that even though I originally thought of my motivations as altruistic," Maura explained, handing over the list for Dr. Sorin's perusal, "almost all of them had secondary, or in some cases equally strong, motivations that were entirely based in self-interest." She sighed, twisting an otherwise unused tissue into a wad. "That's a sign of codependency, isn't it?"

Taking the offered paper from her hand, the psychiatrist quietly read the detailed list before saying anything. Instead of answering her question, however, he asked one of his own as he eyes remained on the page in his hand. "Do you feel the creation of this list helped you in anyway?"

Maura's legs crossed daintily at the ankle, slanted slightly off to one side. "I think it's hard for me to know what helps me anymore," she admitted, barely looking up at the kind face of this man who asked such hard questions, questions she could never have studied for. "I think that I do so much for so many, but it's all for me at the base of it, and now I don't know what's really for me, what's for Jane, or what's for other people. Is that ridiculous? It feels ridiculous, and selfish, and… and horrible to think that all this time, I've wanted to help Jane for _my_ sake."

Sorin folded the list, placing it on the table beside him as he listened. As Maura finished her dialogue, he shook his head gently no. "I believe you'll find every relationship one has with another is mutually selfish. Healthy relationships are also mutual beneficial as well. The question here, Maura, is, perhaps several fold." He glanced down at his notes quickly. Standing, he moved to the sideboard to pour two cups of coffee.

"Do you feel," he began as he brought the coffee back on a tray along with matching china bowls of sugar and creamer. There was also, to one side of the tray, a salt shaker. "Do you feel that you want that type of relationship with Jane? A healthy relationship that is both mutually selfish and mutually beneficial? Do you feel you would be able remain in such a relationship with Jane, as opposed to the type of relationship you have now with her? Would it be as fulfilling for you?" He set the tray down between them on the coffee table and motioned for her to attend to her drink as she pleased while they continued their talk.

It was a legitimate question, and though she thought it over to be certain she understood both the question and her answer, the answer she gave in the end was the same one she'd had when immediately she'd heard the query. "I want to be healthy. I want Jane to be healthy. I want _us_ to be healthy. Together. In whatever capacity, I think we have that potential, and I want to… I want us to be everything that we're capable of being, while benefiting us both to the same degree. There's nothing that I can think of that I want more than that."

With a nod of his head, Sorin settled back into his chair with coffee in hand. "Those are admirable goals, and, I think, healthy." He gave a gentle smile, using her words to both reassure and acknowledge. "Maura, I'd like for you to take a moment to consider, based on your list, what you feel you should do moving forward to reach those goals. Do you think there is anything you could do either for or with Jane to start moving towards that ends where the means did not follow in the same vein of everything you've listed here?" He gently tapped his notebook, indicating he was still speaking of the list.

Belatedly, Maura picked up her coffee cup and adulterated the brew with a little cream, then picked up another little bottle, absentmindedly shaking its contents into her cup. "Well, tonight Jane's supposed to come to her mother's weekly gnocchi night. She's missed a few, both for health and because she's been on cases, but also because of the drinking. But she promised Angela for tonight, which means that she knows if she doesn't show up, her mother will bother her until her new activity comes to light. She wouldn't dare miss it, unless she's trying to be discovered drunk."

A little more shaking, and Maura set down the salt shaker and started to stir, still oblivious. "Angela's teaching me to make the fettuccini, and she always convinces Jane to help in the kitchen as well. Maybe while we're in there, working together, things will be a little easier. I don't want to give her anything she could interpret as an attack or accusation right now, not about the drinking. Maybe I could… I don't know. Invite her to stay over afterward for movie night? Netflix sent us a chick flick and an action movie to look at, and she might like to see one or both. No pressure, no nagging. Just friends. I miss that." She took a sip from her coffee and was nearly successful in suppressing the expression of disgust. "Oh. Oh, that is _dreadful."_

"Yes, I find salt in one's coffee is often distasteful." Taking the cup from her hand, Sorin went back to the sideboard to pour a fresh, unsalted cup. He sat down, handing her the fresh cup of coffee while picking up the salt shaker with his empty hand. "My apologies. Sometimes, when one is distracted by important things, one misses the smaller details. I'm afraid I neglected to remove this from the tray before I brought it over." He quietly set the shaker on the table beside him before picking his notebook up again and making a small notation on the page. "The plan sounds true to your goal. How do you feel about the possibility of Jane declining your offer?"

"Sad," Maura replied as she drank from the cup, this time not trusting herself with cream and sugar. The face she made from the bitterness was not quite as offended as the one she'd made with the salt. "Mostly afraid, though. I'd like to believe that one day wouldn't make a difference, but I can't be so neglectful anymore. Maybe if I'd seen the patterns earlier, and then had or made the opportunity to speak about it at the time instead of waiting, Jane wouldn't be hurting so much now. I think I should speak up now, before I lose all hope of saving us both."

"You speak in the plural almost exclusively when you speak of the relationship between you and Jane, even when asked a direct question about what you, specifically, are feeling." He leaned forward, gently taking the cup from Maura's hand and, in an almost fatherly gesture, adding the cream and sugar for her before handing it back. "Can you think of a reason why this is?"

As she accepted the cup with gratitude, Maura considered the reasons. This time she did not sip, but held the cup in both hands, ignoring the saucer in favor of warming her fingers around the thin ceramic curve. "I don't… Well. Clearly it's because I see us as a unit. We may be a little fractured right now, but we're BFFs. LLBFFs, even. We're two of the few women who work in BPD's Homicide division. We have yoga class together, when Jane attends. We run together, when she's… And, you know, we spend, _spent,_ a lot of our time together, both professionally and socially. We double dated often before the shooting. We even play for the same team."

Sorin checked his notes and nodded once to himself. "Indeed," he murmured.

"We play softball," Maura explained helpfully, clueless and oblivious as to the euphemism she had just delivered. "I'm not very good at throwing, and I'm not technically a cop, but Jane still fought to get me put on her team. I think and analyze quickly, and she says shortstop is a thinking man's position. I almost always at least get on base, and I run well."

Sorin's pokerface remained enviably intact. "For next week's session," he easily shifted gears, "I would like for you to make a list of everything, outside of the confines of what is required of you for your professional working relationship, you once did with Jane. Be as detail oriented as I know you tend to be." His face shifted from neutral to concerned for just the briefest of moments before the mask came back. "If you feel the need to contact me in between now and then, you have my information. Please do not hesitate to contact me, day or night."


	6. Chapter 6

Maura rolled out the last of four batches of pasta. Frankie had made the meatballs under his mother's tutelage, and though Angela was stirring it while her youngest took out the garbage, the sauce had been the result of Tommy's labors.

"That's thin enough," Angela mentioned to Maura as she reached over to feel the pasta sheet. "Good job. Now, switch from the roller to the cutter and send it through. That'll be good for a couple of lunches or dinners. Maybe for a date? There's this terrific guy that works with my divorce lawyer. He's in tax and financial law. _Very_ cute. You should meet him." Her voice lowered so that Frankie, his meatballs finished, would not hear her over the television as she leaned in to say with significant gravity, "Big feet. You know what that means."

"Big gloves?" Maura answered brightly while taking the pasta roller off the rolling machine.

Angela enlightened her. "It's just like I told you about their hands, and especially their thumbs. Noses, too. Oh, and ears."

Maura's eyebrows lifted, though she seemed a bit preoccupied in putting the cutting wheel on the pasta machine. "Big hands, big feet, big nose and ears? Well, the poor man had better be well equipped, if you're looking for something quick instead of something long-lasting, because that is one oddly disproportionate man!" she remarked.

Angela cracked up, then looked out the window, wondering, "What's keeping Tommy? Janie's here. Act natural."

"Doesn't acting indicate a lack of natural behavior?" Maura wondered idly as she slipped the pasta sheet into the machine and started turning the crank. "Besides, it's not like I'm trying to set the stage to trick her. I just want a chance to have best friend time again."

Angela nodded even as she gave Maura a small pat on the arm. "Shh, here she comes."

The door swung open and a smiling Jane sauntered in. "Ma? Maura?"

"In the kitchen!" Angela's voice rang out over the sound of cooking.

"Of course," Jane grumbled. "Hey, I ran into Tommy. He's walking Jo for me."

"He was supposed to help me with the bread! Sometimes I think your brother's never going to learn to cook. I don't know how he eats." With a roll of her eyes, Angela handed a spoon to her daughter. "Go help Maura stir the sauce and tend to the pasta."

"Yeah, sure." Jane sighed but did as she was told, taking up a spot next to Maura at the stovetop. She stared down at the sauce with a frown, dropped the spoon in, and began to stir. "Thirty years old, youngest detective to ever hit homicide, more medals and awards than I can think of, and the best I can do on a Friday night is stir my mother's meatball sauce." She shook her head, lips pursed.

Maura shifted her weight from one foot to the other, drawing her hip close enough to gently knock into Jane's. It was as good a greeting, or peace offering, as they would get; Maura's hands were covered in flour as she cranked pasta through the cutter, precluding hugs. "Hey," she murmured softly, managing to lace her tone with quiet apology. "After this, would you like to stay over, you and Jo? I have _The Thomas Crowne Affair_. Original and remake, directors' cuts. Or I have some chicken flicks." That was one slang phrase she knew correctly, but enjoyed teasing Jane with incorrect ones now and again.

She warmed to her subject as Angela browbeat Frankie into tidying the dining room and setting the table, their louder speech covering up her quieter voice. "We could watch them and make some kind of fattening dessert? Maybe I'll do your hair? You always say you like the way it feels. And I miss you."

Jane ran her free hand across the back of her neck. "I don't know, Maura. I mean, it's been a long week, and I just," she glanced over to see the pleading look on her friend's face. "I can't deal with Ma, okay. Why don't," Jane winced, "you come over to my place tonight after dinner? Maybe Ma can watch Jo and the turtle?" After a brief pause, she said, "And it's 'chick flick', not 'chicken flick'. I know you know better." The chuckle she gave undercut the chastisement in the detective's voice.

"You know better, too," the shorter woman reminded her friend with a warm smile. "Bass is a tortoise. But yes, that sounds good." Deftly she drew her left hand away from the pasta machine as her right hand continued to crank out a two-feet-long stretch of fettuccini. It was a relief, in fact, that Jane had consented to one chaperoned night, though Maura hoped she would not think of it as such. "I think I prefer staying at your place, anyway. It feels more like a real sleepover."

"That's only because you have to sleep with me," Jane shot back, a smile creeping across her face. "That didn't come out right, but you know what I mean." She shook her head. "Just, give me a few to tidy up before you come over, okay? The place is a mess, and I'd feel bad if you had to deal with that. I know how you are about that kind of thing." Eyes steadfast on the sauce, she kept her voice light and even.

Maura nodded yes, both to the request and the suggestion. The observant genius was well aware that it was an excuse for tidying up evidence of alcohol use and abuse, but at least it would mean that there would be no overt drinking tonight. No drunkenness. "Actually, you're probably right," she mused, draping each long piece of fettuccini on the wooden pasta-drying stand. "I do sleep better with another body beside me. That was always the best thing about boarding school and college. I wasn't popular to hang out with, being so much younger than my classmates, but at night anyone who missed her younger sister at home knew whom to invite in for a cuddle. Even today, at least half of what I want from sex is the partnered sleep that I get afterward." She shot Jane a wink and a chuckle as she admitted, "The before is pretty good, too."

Before Maura could mention the _during_part of sex, Angela returned to the kitchen for the pitcher of ice water for the table. "How's it coming, girls?" she asked, giving each one a hug around the shoulders. "Jane, the sauce looks good. Turn it off. Maura, good job on the pasta. Is that the last of it?"

"Yes. It will have to rest for another half-hour before it can be used, at least, but the first three batches are ready, and that should be more than enough for all of us. I think the water's boiling now, if you'd like to take over."

* * *

><p>After dinner, Maura left the kitchen to the others, having chores to do in the rest of the house.<p>

Later on, Maura could never quite get Angela or Jane to explain what had happened as the two of them washed and dried the dishes. All she ever knew was that Jane left after a fight, and had instructed Maura, specifically, to leave her alone.


	7. Chapter 7

_Knock knock knock. _"Jane?"

Knock knock knock.

"Jane."

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

"JANE! Open this door, or I swear, I'll break the window and let myself in."

The inside lock slowly slid open, and the door swung quietly inward, exposing the inside of the apartment. "Bet you would, too," Jane said quietly as she turned, not bothering with the formalities of asking Maura to come in. "You know the drill," she said, words slightly slurred as she plopped back down on the sofa and picked the whiskey bottle up to refill the glass in her hand. "Won't do any good to tell you to leave me the fuck alone, will it?" She threw the whiskey down her throat and poured another, eyes glued to the muted game flickering across her television set.

"None whatsoever, since I intend to invade your space all weekend," Maura quoted Jane with determined cheer as she made for the kitchen for two glasses of ice water and to serve up a bowl of fettuccini from the plastic container she'd brought. While waiting for the microwave to reheat it, she checked the garbage can, noting, "These newspapers, tin cans, and whiskey bottles can be recycled. I'll take care of that in the morning."

Maura served Jane the bowl of pasta, noting, "You're not eating, need to eat. _Mangia." _Deliberately she used the Italian, aware that Angela had often done the same thing. Perhaps it would put a little authority behind the suggestion; perhaps Jane would be too drunk to object to a best friend who claimed that authority.

Jane said nothing. She simply continued to watch the game and take sips of her drink. When a commercial came on to break her concentration, she turned her dulled eyes to the woman next to her. "I'll vomit if I eat now. Too much," she tilted the glass in her hand up. "You know." Her eyes ran over the various items sitting on her coffee table. "You _do_ know, don't you?" Disgust ran across her face as her gaze settled on the whiskey bottle.

"I know," Maura confirmed. "Eat what you can without getting sick. If you want to get sick, you've got whiskey for that. No need to waste your mother's good cooking." She settled back as if completely comfortable, slipped off her shoes, and propped her feet on the table.

"You shouldn't be here." Jane set the empty glass down beside the now empty bottle. "No one should be here." She stood on unsteady feet and made her way to the kitchen. She glanced to Maura and saw her watching, thought for a moment about what she was about to do, shrugged, and pulled out another bottle from her stash in the cabinet. "Pass out before I'll get sick," she slurred as her numbed fingers fumbled with the bottle top. "S'okay, doc, I know to sleep on my side so I don't drown," she almost formed a smirk before her face fell into a slackness that only comes with too much alcohol. Maura felt a pain in her heart. How had she let her best friend get to the point at which she had ever had to learn that lesson? "Go home, baby, I got this." The top came off with a mighty twist, and a little of the brown liquid sloshed onto the counter top. Jane didn't notice.

She didn't bother with a glass. There was no point.

"You know," she said, leaning against the counter to steady herself. "I almost," another drink, "I almost hit a minivan driving home tonight? Did you know that? Bet you didn't know that." She took another long pull. "First thing I said to myself was I had to stop this shit," she held the bottle up. "Second thing I said to myself was, 'Fuck,' because my flask was empty. Did you know I have a flask hidden in the car? Bet you didn't know that either. I'm pretty good about that stuff. I've got rules, you know." She frowned, glancing from Maura to the bottle in her hand.

"Fuck, I'm breaking a whole crap ton of them right now, though." She shrugged. "Oh well. Whatever._ You _know," she took another drink, letting the thick glass hit the counter top with a clinking thud, "Doesn't matter. You_ know_, and, you know, there was a little girl in that van? I almost killed a whole family. What the fuck kind of homicide detective am I, that I almost murder an entire family? Crappy one, that's what. I'm just fucked up, Maura," she said gesturing toward her bathroom. "The mirror's right. The mirror's always fucking right." She sighed, hanging her head, letting her forehead rest on the cool space on the counter's top.

Without a word, Maura stood up to go have a look at the bathroom mirror, where she was confronted with Jane's self-assessment in stark, black dry-erase marker. FAILURE. She could not stop her face from crumpling, but she did stop the tears from falling. With a hastily-yanked square of toilet paper, she erased the hurtful word and wrote another one in big, black, bold letters that Jane would not be able to avoid. It covered the entire mirror at the exact height ofJane's eyes. "And stop hurting my best friend," she ordered the mirror, as if it could pass the message on to the woman who would peer out at Jane from its glassy surface the next time she looked there.

Moments later, she returned from the bathroom. "It wasn't right before, but it's right 're not a failure, Jane. You're a person who's making some big mistakes right now." There was no judgment on her face. "Do you want to fix them?"

"I don't even know anymore, and I'm pretty sure I'm too drunk to figure it out if I did." Jane let her head fall back to the counter. "I think I'm about to pass out." She stood and made her unsteady way to the bedroom.

She fell onto her bed with a grunt, and placed one hand on her nightstand to steady her as she leaned much further than she needed to pull open the nightstand drawer. "Stopped being able to sleep," she slurred as she pulled the locked journal out, its matte black cover giving off a dull shine in the dim light of her beside lamp. "Had to find a way to make it stop. Tried all sorts of crap." She looked down at the journal in her hands. "Crappy read," she held it up to Maura. "If you're going to invade, might as well be thorough about it." She tossed it in Maura's general direction, grunting in satisfaction as it hit the floor by the other woman's feet with a loud whacking sound. "S'all I got," Jane mumbled as she fell back onto the bed, rolling reflexively onto her side as she slipped into welcomed unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>For the next few hours, Maura read Jane's journal. Each entry began with fairly neat printing, which later devolved into sloppiness as her hand got tired and, likely, the whiskey started taking its toll. At least, that was the pattern at first. Later journal entries began messy already, gradually becoming a barely legible scrawl. Sentences started but were not completed, ideas abandoned halfway through. Throughout each entry, common themes sprang up again and again: loss, abandonment, failure, confusion, fear, inadequacy.<p>

After the first two hours, Maura put down the journal to shower, clean up the cold ignored food, and dress for bed. Then she came right back to the journal, unwilling to abandon Jane in the smallest particular: she had opened her journal, her thoughts, and Maura would take and cherish each one, hurt though it did to read them all.

Weeks, months of anguish poured off of every page, glowing with pain. Maura finished her own glass of water, then Jane's, then refilled another, just to replenish what she lost in crying for her friend. She had known there were problems, but had not truly known they ran this deep.

_Because she couldn't tell me. Not even when I asked. _Her mind readily supplied the logic, but it helped not a whit to alleviate the blame she began to place on herself. I should have sensed this._Some genius I am, if I couldn't see this happening till a month ago. Some best friend, to not be able to confront her and offer help until now. She's not the failure. I am._

When she had puzzled out the last word written, Maura allowed herself to continue crying until she couldn't anymore. She took a second shower to cool her hot, pounding head and get rid of the salty tracks of tears down her cheeks and neck.

She fetched one more glass of water as well as a painkiller and moved through the darkened bedroom to set them on the nightstand by Jane's head. In her day, Maura had observed many sorority sisters and dates in the throes of hangovers, and hoped to spare her friend from the worst effects.

Then she crawled into bed and pulled Jane's inert body close to hers, draping one arm around her waist so that Jane would wake her if she got up for any reason. As Jane stirred and fussed a little at the repositioning, she whispered soothingly, "I'm here. Sleep, little spoon." Kissing Jane's shoulder to comfort whichever one of them she could, Maura closed her eyes and finally slept.


	8. Chapter 8

Tired as she was, it took quite a long time for the movement beneath her arm and against her body to interrupt Maura's dream, and still longer for her to fight her way back to the surface of consciousness and understand why she felt chilled and alone. More than alone, in fact. She had often been solitary, the happy and contented version of aloneness, but just now she felt its opposite, lonely.

She was not at home, and knew it even before she opened her eyes.

However, her surroundings were almost as familiar as those for which Maura actually did pay a portion of her income. She inhaled; the scent of whiskey almost entirely obscured the once-familiar smell of lavender in the sheets, but the sounds of Jane's neighborhood were the same. She could identify the time of day by those sounds, the day of the week.

She lay on her side, one hand still stretched out as if she could catch hold of the hem of Jane's shirt and tug her back to bed. It was too late; her lanky bed warmer, whom she had come here to guard and help, was already gone. Sleepy eyes opened with quick fluttering. She stood and headed for the bathroom, hoping to use it for one of its intended purposes, but was stopped at the doorway by the sound of the shower.

There were limits to even the strongest friendships, and theirs had been a little shaky lately. Then again, there were also limits to what the human bladder could accomplish, and hers was nearly at the end. _She won't even notice,_ thought Maura desperately, and stole inside. She was right: thanks to an opaque curtain and an already open door, Jane was never even aware of her presence, not even when she'd flushed and washed her hands. She left, breathing a sigh of relief, unsure as to which of them would have been more embarrassed if that had gone differently.

Just then the water shut off, and Maura froze, leaning against the linen cabinet door. She couldn't return to the bedroom without Jane seeing her, nor even to the living room. She was stuck. Thinking quickly, however, she quickly opened the linen cabinet and perused the towel selection as her breathing calmed. Once she heard Jane's towel rustling stop, she reasoned, she could take the chance that her friend would be covered at least minimally.

Instead, she heard Jane pause, rustle more, then pause again. She would be reading the mirror now. Maura leaned just enough to let her see Jane's reaction to those big, black letters which left no uncertainty at all: LOVED.

The caramel-haired woman watched as her darker friend stared at the words, dumbfounded, and then tried to argue with them.

"No," Jane whispered as she backed into the wall behind her, one hand holding onto her towel, the other running across her face. "No, she's wrong. She's so wrong," she mumbled to herself as she slid down the wall, pulling her knees against her chest and pulling her reflection from the word on the mirror.

She watched as her friend began to sob. It was clear there was no stopping the tears this time, and there was no bottle close enough by for Jane to drown her sorrow and self-pity in. She looked so tired, so scared and lost.

As if Jane could hear Maura's own thoughts about her, she mumbled aloud into the quiet, "Alone and unloved," letting her forehead fall against her knees.

"No, you're not."

Maura hurried to the shivering woman's side, rapidly and gracefully sinking to kneel on the floor beside her friend to enfold her in strong arms. She kissed the side of Jane's mussed, damp head as her nightgown fluttered to stillness around her. "I know you feel that way, though. Sweetheart, I'm so sorry. I tried, we all tried, to be okay for you. We thought you'd need to see us being normal, being happy, so you'd know that you wouldn't have to be sorry for hurting us. But we were wrong, weren't we?"

One arm remained around the lanky woman's hunched body, but the other delicate hand drew back her hair, combed it away from flushed face and sweat-dampened neck. "We should have let you know we were hurt, so you didn't feel like you were alone in it. I'm sorry, Jane. You're not alone, and you're not unloved. You have no idea—" She broke off, with the excuse of giving one more good full-body squeeze. "You're just _not."_

Jane sobbed into Maura's chest, cried directly to the heart of her, laid all her guilt and self-loathing out for Maura to see. Tommy's past drinking and legal problems, Frankie's life as a cop and subsequent injury, her parents' divorce – she seemed to feel personally responsible for every decision made, whether by one of them or by others, that had hurt any of them. Maura held onto her, stroked her hair, hummed tunelessly, and tried to make her see that she was not omnipotent, not in control of other people, and wouldn't want to be. Jane seemed to hear none of it. She just went on confessing to a litany of sins, most of them imagined, and declaring herself unworthy of absolution.

When she wound to a close, her dark eyes looked sunken, as if hiding from judgment even while demanding the harshest penance possible. "It's not fair to you," she said, fingers clinging to Maura's nightgown. "You deserve so much better, and I'm holding you back, which is crazy, because we're not… I mean…" Her curly head shook. "You deserve a better friend than me. God," her head hit the wall with a thud, "I'm such a fucking failure. That's what was up there," she pointed at the mirror. "You should have left it, and you should have gone back last night. You should have left the truth up there, and you should have just left me. I'm toxic."

Maura shook her head no as she listened to the self-loathing coming from the other woman, finally understanding, soul-deep, what it meant to be heartbroken. Jane must be feeling it right now; she knew she herself was. "No, Sweetheart, that's not you." There was more she said, a lot of things, but it all boiled down to the fact that she wanted Jane to stop blaming herself for other people's actions. She sat back on her heels, scooting around to get in Jane's direct line of sight.

Then she, too, began her apologies. Softly, tenderly, she admitted that she had been hurt, and had hidden her pain from her dearest, closest friend. "Are you listening, so far? You don't have to agree, but are you at least listening? Be here with me right now, Jane. I need you to be present." Jane answered with a slow, small nod.

Maura leaned closer, pulling Jane's damp head in for a kiss to the temple, then sat back and offered both hands. "You've hurt me. Do you know how you hurt me? You did it by hurting yourself. You didn't have many other viable options, but you did shoot through yourself in order to let the EMTs get to your brother, and the fact that your life was endangered hurt me. I've tried to be okay, at least when you're around, so you wouldn't see that. It was wrong of me. I should have been honest with you. My therapist will be glad to know that I see that, now." The surprise at finding that medical examiner was also in counseling showed briefly on Jane's face before it once again filled with guilt at forcing her best friend to have to seek such a thing.

She could see the other woman slipping from her, withdrawing. "Jane? Stay with me. I need you to be here with me. Please." Maura caught the scarred hands of her friend and pulled them gently out of their knot and towards herself. "You're hurting me now, too. I'm not going to hide it from you anymore when you do that. Hiding it has only been contributing to your state of numbness, and I'm not going to help you be numb anymore. I'm not going to stock your beer in my fridge, and I'm not going to ask you out for drinks. I'm your friend and I love you, so I'm not going to contribute to your ability to hurt yourself anymore because when you hurt yourself, that's what hurts me the most. I'm through sitting back and analyzing. I'm through just watching you batter yourself over things that were never in your control. From now on, I'm going to take an active role in your life – and you're going to let me, Jane. Do you know why?"

Wide eyed, Jane silently shook her head no.

"Because you didn't mention my name once in your journal, outside of one particular context." Maura licked her lips, took a deep breath, and plunged forward. "And that context was the fear of losing me. It's in almost everything you wrote in your journal, either fresh dreams or memories of previous ones when discussing almost any other subject. You dreamed I was dying, and you couldn't keep me alive. So I _know_, Jane, I know you love me, and I know you're afraid of losingme. Letting me be here with you, letting me help you, is how you're going to keep that from happening."

Silence filled the tiny room as Jane processed. During the time it took for her to calm down, Maura waited with baited breath to see if Jane would let her in, let her help. "I don't know if I can, Maura."

Maura got to her feet, not letting go of Jane's hands, and tugged. "You can," she murmured in absolute trust. "Now, come sit with me in the kitchen while I make you some breakfast, and we can talk somewhere besides this bathroom floor. Need a hand up?"


	9. Chapter 9

After their subdued breakfast, Maura was busy putting things away in the fridge, when she realized that Jane was no longer washing dishes. She kept moving so that her friend would not be alerted to the fact that she was being watched.

The tall brunette's body was rigid, her hands shaking, skin gone pale, and a slight sweat had broken out across her exposed skin. She shook; the half-washed bowl slipped from her wet fingers and back into the sink. Jane turned to stare at the closed cabinet door where she kept her whiskey, visibly using every ounce of self-control she had left not to open it, to stop the tremors. Just one shot would be all it took, but as one hand twitched in that direction, haunted eyes flicked towards Maura, and she froze on the spot.

Not wanting to let Jane know she had been watching as closely as she had, Maura asked in what she hoped was a light tone of voice, "Jane? Where's the other bowl? Did you leave it on the table?" When there was no response, worried hazel eyes fixed upon the taller woman's face, then at the cabinet behind Jane's head.

A sudden surge of something entirely unpleasant took hold of Maura. She thought it might be hatred, this rush of destructive desire. She wanted to yank open the cabinet door, throw everything but the whiskey out of her way, and then smash every bottle on the countertop, the floor, the wall, any hard surface she could find, until there was nothing left that could poison the friend she loved so dearly. Outwardly, she permitted one hand to tighten its grip on the object she still held, just for a moment, and then relax as she uttered the one thing that she knew could calm her. "Jane." Before the name had even passed Maura's lips, she had abandoned the butter bell and stepped towards her friend's side. There was no question of whether Jane was okay; she clearly wasn't. "What can I do to help you _right now?"_

"I honestly don't know. I don't… I can't," Jane closed her eyes, hands clenching at her sides. "I'm going to do this, Maura. I am, but," opening her eyes, she backed away slowly reaching behind her as her eyes remained on the door. As her hand came into contact with a chair, she slowly sat down. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she gave a harsh whisper of a demand. "Pour them out."

Immediately Maura turned to do Jane's bidding, moving swiftly and efficiently, yet without apparent distress or hurry in any part of her but her face. Soft hands opened the wooden cabinet door and removed three full bottles and one partial. Maura winced at the quantity. She opened the first and poured it out, amber liquid so beautiful in color, rich in fragrance.

The soft _purk purk purk purk_as it gurgled out of the narrow bottle neck, the initial impact of whiskey with stainless steel sink, and the gurgle as it wasted away down the drain – it was heartbreaking, such a waste, or would have been if it hadn't been the cheapest, least appealing brand on the market. As it was, it was still a monetary waste, despite the fact that Jane had apparently become accustomed to economizing in order to be able to afford more of this bad medicine.

Three more times, Maura broke seals and wasted the contents, then rinsed each bottle with hot water to remove the scent from the house. When it was all gone from the cabinet, she turned around and asked, "Where's the rest?"

Jane wiped at her mouth with the back of a shaking hand. "Maura," she began to deny it, but the smaller woman stood right in front of her, afraid _for_ her, concerned for her, not permitting the lie.

Maura watched as something heroic happened, something that she could only see because of who she was. Right at that moment, Maura was grateful to have spent her life so socially awkward and isolated, so incapable of understanding those around her, because that was what had led to her intensive study of facial expression and microexpression. It was what let her see that her hero from before the shooting was still there, still able to defeat the mightiest foe she would ever face.

Her best friend could not lie to her effectively, not when Maura was paying attention, but she sometimes tried. She was not trying right now. Right now, Jane had the will to admit to herself she had a problem. Right now, she was strong enough to admit where all her hiding places were. She could do this right now, and she should while she was still strong enough to do so. She closed her eyes and recited the list of hiding places. Maura breathed a sigh of relief.

One brow lifting in silent question, until she was certain that there were no more secret stashes left for Jane to disclose, then went to each one and rid the house of whiskey entirely, picking up bottles, filling her arms with them, and bringing them to the kitchen to pour out. As she was on her way to the last stop, she thought, _It smells good. Well, no, it smells cheap, but I could have something better later on. I've got a gorgeous little cabernet that's been waiting for me—_ The thought stopped abruptly, and the vehemence of the mental halt actually veered her steps off course. She was halfway to her purse before she had the conscious thought as to why she wanted her cell phone.

She dialed the second number on her speed dial, one simply marked as Peter, with a nervous, fumbling hand, and when the cheerful voice answered, skipped every single pleasantry in which she was accustomed to engage when speaking with the delightful man at the other end of the call. "Peter, how soon could I sell the contents of my wine cellar?" she asked, standing in Jane's bedroom, tapping the fingers of her other hand against her thigh.

The response had a bit too much detail. Normally she wanted to hear those things, but the moment felt too urgent. "I don't want to interrupt, Peter, but right now time is precious. Let me be more precise. How soon can every last bottle be out of my home? Even if it has to sit in a warehouse, or be poured out into the toilet, I _will_ be rid of it. This is about the health of someone I… need to be healthy." While speaking, Maura fetched a box to stand upon while rummaging on the top closet shelf, fingers searching blindly until finding that last bottle of whiskey.

Used to Dr. Isles's particular treatment of the excellent vintages in her cellar, Peter started to talk about the optimum temperature and humidity levels for preserving the flavor, color, clarity, and bouquet of each one. Maura broke in, one more time. "Listen, Peter. _Listen. _I don't ever want to see it again. In fact, if every bottle isn't out of my house by the end of this week, I may pour it all down the toilet on Sunday morning. I don't care how it leaves my house; I care _that_ it leaves my house."

Once she had put the box back in place, Maura left the bedroom with the final drop of whiskey Jane possessed and headed back into the kitchen. "I want to be rid of all of it. Every last bit, Peter. Contact every oenophile and auction house you can find, discreetly, and see what you can do. Celerity is more important than revenue. All right, thank you. Just get it to an expert's care as soon as possible. Try Maurice Quigley; I believe he's in the country right now. Thank you, Peter."

She opened the bottle and poured, then turned towards the refrigerator, trying for the moment to ignore Jane so that she would not see the look on her face. There was still the beer in the fridge, as well as two bottles of her own wine that she'd left here over a month ago, the last time she'd been welcomed. Without an instant of mercy or regret, she went after every bit of it, pulling it out and uncapping or uncorking every bottle, then enriching the life of the drain pipe with grape, with hop and barley.

When the entire apartment was free, she moved back to Jane's side and stood by her chair, placing one hand atop her friend's morning-mussy hair. "Still present?"

"More or less," Jane cleared her throat. "What was that phone call about?" She reached up to pull the hand on her head down. Threading her fingers through Maura's, she looked up, waiting. Her eyes said she needed the distraction even as her hands trembled and her body twitched.

"I found one more stash," Maura replied easily, and since the one hand had been taken possession of, the other took its turn in petting and stroking Jane's hair, head to neck to spine. "Mine."

"You didn't have to do that. I know how you feel about your wine, Maura. I can't ask you to turn your life upside down just because I've let mine go all to hell." As she spoke, Jane leaned in, resting her head against the doctor's lean frame. She sighed heavily, "Thank you."

Maura's eyes closed as she wrapped her arm around Jane's head and shoulders, pulling her closer into her body, still clad in her nightgown and robe, protecting and comforting. It took several seconds longer than usual for her to speak, though she had the words. _You _are_ my life,_ she tried to say, but the sound would not come. She cleared her throat, suddenly glad to have been given that opportunity to reword herself. Dr. Sorin had warned her of her codependency. Now was not the time to burden Jane. "Sweetheart," she replied, voice thick and heavy, as her fingers idly stroked Jane's cheek and jawline, "you may know how I feel about wine, but you clearly don't know how I feel about you if you think you're not far more important to me."

"Maybe not," came the muffled answer.

For a time, they remained that way before Jane pulled out. "I feel bad, Maura. I feel really bad, and cold and hot and shaky, and… it's hard for me to think, and… honestly, if you weren't here, I'd probably be licking the empty bottles right now. I think… can we go lay down, away from… I can still smell it, and I need," she shook her head. "I have a problem. I need help, but do you think I can do this without rehab? My job, my reputation… God, I've fucked it all up." Her eyes flicked back to the cabinet door, a reflex.

Rather than giving direct verbal assent, Maura simply let her hands give Jane a gentle tug towards standing height, stepped back just enough to allow Jane to rise without bumping into her on the way up. "Go lie down, Jane. I'll clean out the sink so you can't smell it anymore. I do know a therapist who will treat you outside the rubric of the BPD, so they won't be able to ask questions about your issues or your fitness to serve. I'll call her a little later if you want. Right now, get back into pajamas. A fresh pair. I'll meet you in there and we'll talk about your options."


	10. Chapter 10

"Thank you, yes," Maura replied as Dr. Sorin offered her tea as usual. This time, she flavored it properly. It had been an eventful few weeks, and most of the intervening sessions had been spent simply relaying the events; the processing had been done in her email journal, with the occasional question emailed back to her for consideration and elaboration.

First on the table in almost every session was the way Jane seemed to be responding to her therapy, which was important because it influenced the way Maura responded to Jane. She was getting more comfortable recognizing the line between supportiveness and codependency, and more and more, she was remaining on the proper side of that line.

In consequence, the psychiatrist was fully aware of Jane's decision to get out from under her dependence on alcohol, and the progress she had made in therapy, or at least, the information she had shared with Maura about it. Maura had told him all about Jane declining invitations to the Dirty Robber, claiming she needed to go home to sleep or catch up on various errands and chores.

She had also described Jane's fight with Angela, cases the two had worked together, and the way sports, verbal sparring, and gargalesis seemed to be the way that the Rizzoli siblings took out their aggressions, improving one another's toughness, reflexes, and mental acuity through these substitutes for violence, helping rather than harming one another. In fact, most details of Maura's life, both at work and within her growing place within the Rizzoli family, had been vivisected by herself and the doctor. She was really an ideal patient, in a lot of ways.

Today, however, it gradually became apparent that there was information that she had withheld.

* * *

><p>"She hasn't woken up with nightmares quite as often," explained Maura with a touch of pride as well as relief, "so we've both gotten a lot more sleep lately. There are still a few, of course. I don't know that she'll ever be fully rid of Hoyt or Marino, but those nightmares seem to be losing their intensity lately. She might startle awake, but she doesn't scream or moan as often before she wakes." Sorrow infused her words as she added, looking down into her sweetened, milky tea, "She still cries when I'm the nightmare, though. I can always tell when it's about me, because even before she wakes up, she…"<p>

"Maura, I'm sorry to interrupt your train of thought," Sorin spoke quickly, a confused look on his normally neutral face as he flipped through his notes of their various sessions, "but I seem to be missing some information in my notations. Can you tell me, how is it that you know these very specific details of Jane's sleeping patterns and habits?"

Maura's head tilted, as it often did when she was puzzled enough to have to jostle and sift things loose and let them resettle into more discernible patterns. "Because I'm there," she said, holding up her hands as if to say, _This is obvious, isn't it?_

"Perhaps some clarity is in order?" Face going back to its pleasantly neutral state, Sorin flipped to a clean page in his notebook. "You are there in the sense that you are in the same dwelling as Jane and can hear her when she is distraught, or you are there in the sense that you and she are sharing the same room when sleeping, or you are there in the sense that you are sharing the same bed?"

The patient actually laughed as she pointed out, "I don't want to make assumptions about anyone else's life, but in my bedroom and in Jane's, there's only _one_ bed. We share it. Them. Both. That is to say, whichever home we choose for the night, we share the bed."

Sorin made a few quick notations. "The two of you sleep in the same bed." It was a statement. He was clearly not looking for clarification. "How long has this been happening? How common is it for the two of you to share a bed?"

This time, the head tilt was accompanied by eyes rolling upward, as if the answer was on the ceiling: she was delving into memory. "Let's see. Most nights since Jane's been speaking to me again. Sometimes one of us is on call and catches a case, but other than that, we're either at her apartment or my house. We didn't see one another much at all from the first time she called me and I came over straight from Byron's, but when she was in the hospital, I stayed there with her most nights. Before the shooting, I'd say about once or twice a week, depending on nightmares. Usually hers, but I had a few right after I was kidnapped by my birth father."

"Would you say it is common for one or both of you to find comfort in touch while in this sleeping arrangement?" The psychiatrist pulled out the list Maura made of the things she and Jane regularly did together while they were off duty, double checking it as he spoke. "Or do you simply share the same bed space but are not apt to lean toward physical contact?"

Maura's shoulders and spine waved, indicative of a so-so sentiment. "I think it's pretty common for any two people sharing a bed to be in contact, isn't it? I've never shared any kind of sleeping accommodation without some form of contact. But," she added after a moment's pause for thought, "it _is_ comforting. For both of us. Naturally, it would be; I'm sure you've read the same studies I have about sleeping singly versus co-sleeping, resonance in patterns of breathing and heart rates, and so on. Even more to the point, Jane doesn't have as many nightmares when we're spooning as she does when it's summertime and we're too warm for much more than holding hands. I feel easier, too. Both of us sleep better and wake up in much better moods."

More notations followed the silence as Sorin considered his patient's words. "Those studies are normally done on children and parents, or on partners who share a romantic connection. It is rare to find one that focuses on sleeping patterns of two adults in a platonic relationship sharing sleeping space. In fact," Sorin stood to move to his bookshelf, pulling out a thick, dark covered book from its place among the rest, "the most recent study was done on romantic partners." He returned to his seat, handing the book to Maura. "I find it interesting that you would cite such studies when describing your affiliations with Jane. Tell me, do you consider your relationship with Jane to be similar that of a mother-daughter pairing?"

"Certainly not," Maura protested, albeit with a laugh. "I may be codependent, but I'm not maternal, and I don't really know how to be much of a daughter, either. Jane doesn't see me as a mother or a daughter, either, despite the fact that we do take care of one another in many ways, and in various situations." Another laugh; Maura realized aloud, "Can you imagine? If Jane thought of me as her mother, she'd probably want to see me once a week, at most, and only if I made gnocchi."

Sorin allowed a small smile to grace his lips before he continued. "If you do not qualify your relationship in terms of a mother-daughter pairing, then how do you define it within yourself?"

"Pardon?"

Giving an atypically heavy sigh, the doctor shook his head. "No, I'm terribly sorry. That was a bit confusing, wasn't it? Let me ask this in another way. Based solely on your internal thoughts, feelings, and processes and not withstanding any outside factors – be it your perception of Jane's thoughts, feelings, etc. or anyone else's – how would you say you qualify your relationship with Jane? Be truthful, Maura. I believe the cliché saying would be, 'What does your internal voice say when you think no one is around to hear it, even yourself?' I, again, am terribly sorry for asking in such a way, but I feel I've exhausted other avenues, and this new bit of information," he stopped himself, his obvious earnestness regarding something he had clearly sorted out about his patient making him uncharacteristically pull out of his normally neutral state. "Maura, what, exactly, _are_ your entire spectrum of feelings for Jane, honestly?"

"The _entire_ spectrum of my feelings?" Maura repeated incredulously, then glanced at her wristwatch. Twenty-five minutes to go; not enough time. "Dr. Sorin, again, I am extremely reluctant to speculate on the emotional depth of other patients of yours, but _mine_ is considerably beyond that of this teacup," she said, holding it up for emphasis, then setting it down again in its saucer, and the two items together back on the table, half-finished and cold. "I couldn't possibly begin to explain my entire range of emotions concerning anyone in my life in an entire session, let alone – and by the way," added the woman, with lessening calm, "why do you say _honestly,_ as if that would be novel? You know I can't lie. Have you ever had cause to believe I was being less than fully honest with you?"

"With me? No." Sorin resettled into his chair, clearly contemplating his next words before speaking them aloud. "If Jane were to engage in a romantic relationship tomorrow with another person, and it was clear after a time that the relationship would end in marriage, how would you feel?"

Maura colored, then blanched. "I would be glad… for her," she whispered as her hands flew up to her face to catch the words, stuff them back in before she could pass out. Something had to be done if she was to remain conscious. "But I would be so cold."

"Explain why." The statement was gentle but demanding. It was clear the psychiatrist would not back away from this line of conversation until some resolution was achieved.

Discreetly, one feminine hand snuck towards the box of facial tissues and plucked three, letting two fall to her lap for later while Maura brought the third preemptively towards her face. "Because Jane is _my_… She's… Because she only has a full-sized bed, and there wouldn't be room there for me anymore."

"And what place do you really desire to hold in Jane's bed?"

Maura swallowed down the nausea that had been boiling up in her since Dr. Sorin first brought up the notion of Jane being in a romantic relationship with anyone, though the effects of the sensation were still evident in her facial expression. Nevertheless, this patient was quicker than most when it came to honest self-assessment, and she proved it by squaring her shoulders and saying clearly, "I suppose pointing out that it's obvious does not obviate the need to make it explicit as well. Fine. I don't care what that place is called, as long as it's always mine."

Leaning back in his chair, Sorin tilted his head in consideration. "Are you ready to verbally say what you are admitting to by making that statement?" He was gambling that his patient was as self aware as she had proven time and again to be. If this was the wrong step, she may relapse. However, some risk was sometimes needed with Maura Isles in order to encourage her to take the same.

Despite a little sniffle, Maura remained sitting upright with excellent posture. "There's nothing to _admit_. That term would indicate either shame, or a prior deception that had to be corrected. However, I am glad to _recognize_ it, and now that I do, I'm happy to _declare_ that I love Jane."

Easiest coming-out ever.

"Now," the patient continued, reaching for a tissue, "maybe you can help me understand why that should change anything. My best friend, whom I… whom I love, is hurting. I'm hurting with her. But we're getting better, individually and together, so now I need to have a plan going forward. I need to know how to help both of us as best I can, without pushing her into any stage of recovery for which she's not ready yet."

He leaned forward and tapped the book now sitting on the coffee table that he had handed Maura earlier. "Internal motivation is key to understanding emotional needs and upsets. Without probably understanding the 'whys' of things, we can never hope to unravel the 'hows' of things. For example, the case studies you cite when you state that you and Jane cuddle while sleeping are, truly, associated with intimate or child-parent relationships, which is why I asked you early if you thought of yourself in a mother-child relationship with Jane. When you answered in the negative, I realized we could be going about things in a more effective manner."

Carefully, he set the notebook down on the side table and then stood to fetch a cup of tea as he spoke. "The fact that you associate as you do means that how you deal with a situation may vary from that of a person who was not romantically attached in some way." He returned to his chair, mimicking Maura's normal seated position, coffee cup in hand. "You are still searching for goals in which you assist both yourself and Jane. Have you entertained the thought that, perhaps, Jane would be better helped by not being as supported by you as she has been? When was, for example, the last time you spent a night away from Jane?"

"Other than when one of us was called in for a case and the other wasn't?" Maura asked, stalling for time, but Sorin's nod didn't give her more than an additional second to work with. "We tried about a month ago just to see how it went, but I wasn't sleeping well, and apparently she wasn't either. When Jane called me after a nightmare, we talked for the next hour and a half until it was time for our usual wake-up and going running. Oh – she's running with me again, did I mention? She even came to yoga last week."

"Yes, you did in the last session." Sorin made another note. "Have you given any consideration to giving Jane time while also providing for yourself? As you well know, I'm not apt to make suggestions to my clients," as if the very idea was distasteful, he shifted in his seat and cleared his throat, "but have you given thought to taking a holiday or, at the very least, one night where you spent time with someone else? At the very least, this would help you gauge your codependence. At the very most, you would allow Jane time to again learn to cope while being alone. I cannot, and would not of course, diagnose another's patient. But, if you were having such issues as you've indicated to me Jane has, I would encourage you to try to have some time alone once you'd progressed to a certain level so that you could better learn to engage your coping mechanisms."

He stood, an unpleasant look quickly crossing his face as he picked up the book to return it to its shelf. "I'd rather not do that again," he said as he returned to his seat. "I rather dislike 'what if' type statements."

Again, Maura stalled. "You know, I never liked statements that began with 'what if', but J—_someone_ reminded me that all of science begins with 'what if'. That's the basis for every hypothesis that has ever been tested according to the scientific method. Not that psychology is a hard science. It's far more difficult to test things concerning the human psyche, given that unexpected results can be so disastrous for the individual." She cleared her throat, glancing elsewhere. It had been close; she'd nearly said that psychology wasn't a _real_ science.

"Be that as it may," continued the woman once her thoughts were in order, "I don't want to spend a night away from Jane. Even aside from her conflicts with alcohol and my issues with codependency, I've always found it pleasurable to sleep with another person, and Jane is someone with whom I already share physical ease and comfort. Not to be too personal, since I know that our meetings are the furthest thing from a two-way street, but how often did _you_ enjoy spending time away from… the person who was your primary relationship in life?" she nodded towards the picture of Sorin and a beautiful Indian woman, resting unobtrusively on a bookcase near his desk.

"Not well, and I miss her dearly," he answered quietly. "But we were wed, and our situations were different to yours and Jane's. If you are seeking a warm body, you have indicated that you've options of which you have not explored in some time. Perhaps readdressing those other options for, at the very least, one night would be something to consider?"

"But she…" Maura looked stricken, then controlled the reaction with a speed that was both admirable and troubling. "Okay. I suppose I could accept an invitation from an old friend who's coming to town the day after tomorrow." By now, Dr. Sorin was familiar with the term as Maura used it: _old friend_ generally meant _sexual history._

Sorin raised an eyebrow as he jotted down something in his notes. "I would encourage you to consider opening yourself up to other options. I think it would be healthy for you. I am, after all, here to help you find ways to help yourself, and the only way to do such a thing is to start by focusing on yourself, even if that focus is very short-lived." He nodded toward the photo Maura had referenced just a moment before. "My wife had a saying," he smiled gently at the memory, "Never deny one's inner self for the sake of another's outer needs.' She was, naturally, much wiser than I." He winked.

"I don't want," Maura began, then sighed in resignation. "But I should, shouldn't I? I may love Jane, but she's… she's not in a healthy place right now." She reached for the tissue box. "Until she is, it would be not just fruitless, but possibly harmful, to derail her recovery process by making her deal with my emotions on top of her own. Maybe you're right. She's probably getting tired of me always being underfoot anyway, and nothing feels worse than finding out that someone doesn't want you there after you've been there for a long time. And, and, and I could use some space, and a night out, and… Anyway, I'll do it. Okay. I'll call Harold and let him take me out. And I'll sleep without Jane that night."

With a nod of acknowledgement, Sorin made a final notation before closing his notebook and setting it and the pen on the coffee table. "I realize it's still a bit early, but I think we've come to a good stopping place today. As always, feel free to contact me day or night should you need anything."


	11. Chapter 11

Jane's apartment was quiet as Maura opened the door to let herself in. The therapy session had ended early, and she had decided to stop by her house to pick up a few items for the next day and call Harold. The call had lasted longer than she had expected, and she had arrived at Jane's apartment much later than originally anticipated.

Based on the state of both the kitchen and the living area, it was clear Jane had eaten and was already in bed. Quietly, Maura went through her normal routine, getting ready for bed as quietly as she was able. In time, she was freshly showered, smoothed with lotion, and dressed in a silk pajama set she tended to favor because Jane had once made a comment on the color.

As she entered the bedroom, she saw that Jane was quietly lying on her normal side of the bed. The lamp on the opposing side was on, and there was a glass of water sitting unobtrusively beneath the light. At the thoughtful gesture, Maura smiled as she slipped into what she had long ago claimed as her side of the bed, laying on her back and pulling the covers up to her waist.

Jane yawned, rolled over, and snuggled up against the side of the doctor, "Hey," she murmured through her sleepiness, "you look happy. Good session or did you have a really good autopsy tonight? Let me guess, the stomach contents were really interesting? The guy had, like, some sort of rare sushi puffer fish or something in his stomach, right?" She gave a halfhearted chuckle as she pulled the sheets up to cover them both and settled more firmly against the other woman, one leg snaking out to drape across the doctor's legs as her free hand settled on the silky material covering Maura's waist.

"All of the above," replied Maura with a low chuckle, permitting her body to relax into and under Jane's. "I found the cause of death for Crowe's case, got back some fascinating tox results for Korsak, finished the final report for you, and then I had a… well, it wasn't a pleasant session with Dr. Sorin, but it was productive." One idle hand swept up Jane's back and neck, landing quite far up in the messy, disobedient curls that she had come to view as her personal playground. They felt friendly and fun, those dark corkscrews, as she combed coarsely through them with her fingers. She sighed in satisfaction; Sorin's edict would not be enacted this night.

"Oh yeah, loads of fun," Jane deadpanned, giving a contented sigh at the feel of Maura's hand playing with her hair. "You stop by your place? I thought you left this set of pjs there the last time we did laundry?"

Maura nodded, smiling up towards the ceiling while on her back. A little adjustment here and there, and her posture and leg placement suited her just fine. It was a good night. "Remember, I had my dirties in the car when we went to work this morning? I took them to the dry cleaner, picked up my last batch, stopped off at my place to change up the clothing rotation a little bit. There was a note from Mimi," she said of her combination housekeeper and tortoise tender, "and your mother dropped by as I was hanging up the phone; she wants to make one of your favorite focaccia recipes instead of gnocchi for family night this week. She also said I should tell you, _good for her_."

"Good for who? For Mimi?" The confusing was clear in the detective's voice.

Again, the smaller woman chuckled as her free hand trailed over Jane's, which still rested on her own stomach. It felt good to be here, doing this. "Silly. No, she meant good for you. She's noticed that you're running with me again in the mornings, and she said it's making your butt look great. She's right, too. Your gluteus maximus and minimus, as well as your… I mean, your butt and your thighs look like my college roommate's, and that's really good, because her boyfriend used to tell his friends that he could totally wear her for a party hat."

She paused; had it not been resting on the pillow, Maura might have tilted it to the side as she added, "I'm not entirely certain that would be logistically feasible, but it sounded like it might have been a rather enthusiastic compliment, doesn't it?"

"Something like that," Jane chuckled, snuggling closer as a chill ran through her. "So, where are we staying tomorrow night? I guess maybe your place? I sort of miss Ma, but don't tell her I said that. She'll use it against me later."

"Um," Maura said, hands faltering a little. She hadn't quite planned what to say yet, but since it was brought up, she couldn't very well refuse to talk about her plans. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. You're more than welcome to stay at my place tomorrow, but as it happens, I… may or may not be there at the time."

Small fingers, short nails, stroked along Jane's forearm soothingly. "Remember I told you I had a phone call? Well, an old friend, Harold Bell, is coming in from Ogden tomorrow. He's here for business during the day, but I said I'd go with him to the opera tomorrow night. Knowing it's a Wagner opera, they go pretty late, so it's possible that I might just stay in his hotel room afterward, so that I don't have to drive all the way back home. If that's okay, I mean. I've been treating you with less than the full respect you deserve, acting as if you need me to keep you from getting into trouble. The truth is, you're stronger than I've been giving you credit for, and you don't need a babysitter to be here all the time just to keep you on track."

"Oh." Body suddenly rigid, Jane cleared her throat. Her voice cracked slightly as she asked, "One of your doctor friends from before," she shifted, redirecting her question as she rolled onto her back and away from Maura, "from… before you started working as the ME here? What does he do?"

Maura's face fell, but only for a moment. She had to remain positive, or this would never work. "He's an otolaryngologist. Ear, nose, and throat specialist. In fact, he's been called in to see to some problems that the primadonna has been having, the one we're going to see." She snuck a hand back towards Jane, the one that had been freed when Jane rolled off of her and off of that arm. "Jane, please don't be upset. You'll be fine for one night. I believe in you."

"I'm good," came the smooth reply, voice not as light as one would expect of someone who was trying to prove they were, in fact, fine. Still, she took Maura's offered hand even as her face switched between passive, upset, and something else that only flashed for the briefest of moments. "I'm great. I mean that. Besides, it won't hurt me to spend a night alone. I'm a big girl; I can handle this. I've totally got this. Besides," she said, rolling her head to face the doctor, "it'll be good for you to get out for a night and have some… fun with… other people." Despite herself, Jane winced. "I'm sure he's a good guy. You should go have fun, and then you can come back tell me all about it." She frowned. "Well, don't give me details once you hit the hotel room, but you know what I mean."

Softly, the smaller woman squeezed Jane's hand within hers as she scooted in. If Jane wouldn't lie on her, she would lie on Jane, _make_ her feel Maura's affection, support, and closeness. "I'll do my best," she promised to herself as well as her friend. "And Jane? I'll have my cell phone on vibrate, even during the show. If you really do need me, I _will_ come to you. I will always have your back. But I don't think you'll need me." She leaned in, letting her weight rest on Jane's side as she deliberately brushed the backs of her fingers down the side of her friend's face, then cupped the strong jawline. "You're a formidable woman. So tough."

Jane leaned into the touch, adjusting so that both women were comfortable in this new position. "No, but I'm working on it. Besides, if I figure out I don't need to be alone, I can call Ma or Frankie or anyone else. You deserve to at least be able to have some personal time without me. I mean, not that you have _personal_ time _with_ me. Um… what I'm trying to say," the detective blushed, "is that my foot is so deep in my mouth I'm surprised I'm not choking on my knee. Look, go have a good time, okay? Can we," a strong, sinewy hand crept across Maura's back to wrap around the smaller frame, hand resting again the doctor's waist, "get some sleep? It's going to be a long day tomorrow. We don't have any cases open, so we're digging through the cold case bin."

Being forgiven – for what, she wasn't entirely certain – felt so good. Maura released the tense breath she'd been holding with a long, satisfied sigh, eyes closing. "Mm. Yes," she agreed, smiling as she was pulled in.

Even so, a little niggling regret scratched at the back of her mind, as Jane drifted away from the waking world. Once looking her own emotions in the eye, she couldn't unlook, and now there they were, waiting for her: Maura loved Jane. She was sharing a bed with Jane. They were wrapped tightly enough that, had Angela barged in as she was wont to do, she would have made assumptions as to the nature of their friendship.

She was sleeping with Jane. Actually sleeping, no euphemisms involved.

And Jane wanted her to have _personal_ fun time with Harold.

Maura suppressed a shiver as Jane's breath caressed her cheek and neck in sleep. This was new, wasn't it? She could have sworn that they had laid cuddled up like this before, but surely their faces had been differently positioned, or she would have felt that soft breeze with each inspiration and expiration from her best friend's lungs. Last time the two of them had slept facing and on their sides, arms around one another, where had she put her hands? She couldn't remember, and now they felt bigger, clumsy, too hot. Their torsos had been flush, but previously there had not been contact between… No, there must have been contact somewhere besides just ribcages and a bit of stomach, so why hadn't Maura noticed it? Had their thighs – best not think about the placement of _that_ one, actually. How was it that she was only noticing these things now?

As Jane shifted in sleep, Maura caught a glimpse of the clock behind her head. She had been lying there, thinking and trying not to think, feeling and trying not to feel, for nearly two hours. Well, this was ridiculous. She closed her eyes, deciding to meditate until she fell asleep. Just before she could do so, Jane shifted again, and Maura tightly clamped down what would have been a shudder.

Apparently she needed this date with Harold more than she had realized.


	12. Chapter 12

The caramel-haired beauty had taken especial care with her appearance lately. In fact, she had been looking better ever since the day she had informed Dr. Sorin that her best friend had begun therapy for her drinking. Now she was well coordinated, smartly accessorized, bright of eye and – thanks to yesterday's appointment at the salon – shiny of hair. It was a shame, she reflected as she viewed herself in the washroom mirror, that he would see this as a new development, rather than as a return to her usual state. Nevertheless, _she_ knew, and that was the important thing. Now that she looked her best, she decided she was much closer to feeling her best. Or, at least, as close to her best as she could.

A few minutes later, she was seated in her usual spot, having declined the offer of tea but accepted water. Without preamble, she started right in. "The date didn't happen."

"I see," Sorin settled into his chair, slowly setting his teacup aside as he picked up his pen. Instead of following his normal line of questioning, he veered slightly, choosing, instead, to focus on something he had noticed as soon as his patient had entered his office. "In case I've failed to mention it this morning," he began as he casually flipped through his notes from the previous session, "your dress is rather fetching on you, Maura, and do I detect an updated hair style?" He seemed to be searching for something in the various notes as he made what was apparently small talk.

Since it had been on her mind already, Maura welcomed the observation with a bright smile. "Yes, you do! Andre is such an artist. Of course, he lamented the state in which I came to him yesterday, but, by the time he finished with me, I felt like a new person. Well, no," she contradicted herself, "I feel like an old person. I feel like myself again. I suppose that's the reason for the orange," she stroked the shantung silk of her dress. "I felt like a poppy today."

"Bright yet elegant," the psychiatrist commented as he stopped on a page several pages back in sessions. "Can you pinpoint what brought about the return to your 'old self', as you say?" His eyes skimmed over his notes as he casually sipped his tea.

It was really quite astonishing how differently people could express the same emotion. Maura's excitement was like no other's. It was, in fact, quite calm, all things considered. Perhaps it was because she was rested; the darkening was nearly absent from her nasojugal folds. "I think it's a combination of things. There was the fact that Jane had a strong urge to drink, but then she elected to take care of herself first – before I even got there, I'll add. There's the fact that in our last session, you helped me learn something, which makes it easier to understand some of the things I've been thinking and feeling and doing lately. There was the reason my date didn't happen. There's the fact that Jane's therapist invited me to take part in her next session, which I interpret to mean that there's been some kind of a breakthrough for her, and that has me excited on her behalf. And, of course, I got my hair done and bought a new dress, which always make me feel fantastic. Oh! And today I found the evidence that is going to put a killer away for life, unless the prosecution completely mangles the legal case, so I feel like… Oh, what is that phrase… Jane called me a stud-Muppet."

"Muffin, actually, stud-muffin," Sorin flipped back to the page for the current session's notes and quickly wrote down a number of things.

Maura thought about the substitution of the two words, but dismissed it as unimportant. Neither muffins nor Muppets were used in breeding programs to sire genetically advantaged offspring, and therefore the expression had no hope of making sense. "Whatever."

Sorin gave a quiet chuckle. "Congratulations on your professional success," said the psychiatrist with a small nod of approval. "Would you like to start today by telling me the circumstances in which you canceled your evening out without Jane?"

Maura nodded and, with alacrity, set out to explain the events as she saw them. "I returned Harold's call, and he invited me to come out to the opera with him. It was a Wagner opera, and you know how long those are; he suggested that afterward we could get a late bite to eat in his hotel room. Most good restaurants are closed by the time the shows let out, but room service is twenty-four hours a day. Well, you know what _that_ means," she pointed out with an eyebrow raised to indicate significance.

"And I must say," she went on, "I was looking forward to it. You wouldn't believe the tension I've been under lately. Between work, fitness training, Rizzoli dramatics, therapy sessions, and Jane, I don't think I've had more than fifteen consecutive minutes alone for at least six months, and when I do get that time, I'm usually just too tired to use it constructively. That, coupled with the realization that I'm in love with the person who shares my bed… Well, you can imagine how deeply frustrated I've been for the past week." She paused for a sip of water and to permit questions or observations before continuing.

Sorin simply nodded his head for her to continue when she was ready to do so.

"I think I might have been a little too vocal," Maura admitted, "about my enthusiasm for the date, or at least for the sex. I've noticed that Jane… Well, actually, most of the people I know now who are from different socioeconomic strata from my own… they're a bit uneasy about that subject, especially those from certain religious backgrounds. I just, you know, have a tendency to talk a lot when I'm nervous, upset, or excited about something. So Jane, Frankie, Frost, Korsak, Angela, Tommy, and possibly one or two other people knew that I was planning to, as Angela put it, hit a few operatically high notes of my own that night. Though that's not really accurate. I'm not really a shrieker. I tend to get quieter, not louder, the better things are going."

The woman's fingers began to fidget, twirling her middle finger ring around and around that digit. "I wanted to make sure Jane would be okay, and maybe ask Angela to look in on her, so I went to the diner. Jane was there, and so was Frankie, and Jane was in a completely foul mood. She wouldn't tell me why, and although I didn't know for certain, I guessed. But I… Well, this might not have been entirely productive, but I sort of tested my hypothesis by telling Frankie that what he was teasing me about was most likely going to be accurate – that I was probably going to be engaging in sexual intercourse later that evening."

"You were testing Jane's reaction to this information?" Sorin tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as he listened to how the events of the previous day unfolded.

Regret and embarrassment suffused Maura's soft features for a moment, but she nodded, unaccustomed to concealing relevant information from her therapist. "As I said before, I recognize that it was not the best thing to do, but at that very moment, it was the thing I did. I needed to know. It was something that would never affect Jane at all if all she cared about was being left alone that night. She'd have minded that I was going out, but not minded what I was going to do while I was out there. If she wanted the time to herself, she would even be relieved. The only way that could have upset Jane was if she particularly wanted _me_ to not be having sex."

"You were testing a," he paused to find the correct word for his very particular patient, "hypothesis that Jane would be bothered by the fact that you may engage in sexual activities with someone? What observation brought about the desire in you to test such a hypothesis?"

"The fact," Maura explained with a hint of triumph, "that Jane rolled right off of me when I told her I had a date. She didn't even hold my hand again until I initiated it."

"I see." Shifting in his seat, Sorin's face gave just a hint of amusement. Despite himself, he was becoming very enraptured with Maura's life and, if he were to be honest with himself, had been internally hoping something like this would happen. He was, at the core of things, a romantic. "What happened once you tested your hypothesis?"

That saucy smile persisted, then grew as Maura leaned forward and pointed with a little sinuous arm movement, just to make the literal point obvious. "She was mad." Her shoulders pulled back, expressing a certain amount of pride: she had a hypothesis, tested it, and been proven right. "You see? The set of her facial muscles clearly indicated displeasure and hurt. Oh, don't – Look, Dr. Sorin. There's no joy in the knowledge that she stormed out of the diner, went out, and bought a flask of whiskey, and went home to have a drink. I'm really not happy about that part of it. However, it pleases me that even before I got there, Jane had poured the bottle down the drain, having decided not to let that desire rule her. The reason why she felt that way? _That_ pleases me – almost as much as the fact that she didn't drink when she felt tempted. Do you see?" Maura leaned forward, smiling but intense. "She _likes_ me."

"What reason did she give you for not taking a drink that would support your final conclusion?" His voice was temperate, though the corners of his mouth were fighting to not upturn.

A certain smugness saturated her smile. "She didn't tell me a reason for not drinking, and I didn't ask. I believe she chose not to drink because she knew it was harmful to herself, but I do not know that for a fact. It might have been because she knew her drinking could harm others, or that she didn't want to break a winning streak – she's a big believer in streaks. I can't speculate on that overly much. I can only say that I know Jane was proud of herself for not drinking. I saw that in her face and posture when I first walked in the door."

"As well she should be. But, given what you've told me thus far, I'm finding it difficult to understand why your evening's plans changed." With a flick of his eyes to the notebook in his lap, he added, "It doesn't seem as though your support services were needed if Jane was able to cope on her own with her addiction."

More smugness. "Don't you get it? Oh, wait, no, I haven't told you! Right! _So,"_ she burst forth, bringing her hands softly together in a soft clap. "When Jane poured out the bottle and bleached out the sink, I asked if she needed me to stay with her, or needed me to go so she could have some time to herself. She told me to go on my date, and not stay home and babysit her. She said she didn't want to hold me back from doing things I wanted to do. But then she said she knew it had been a while since I _did some stuff_. You know what that means, don't you? To someone who's uncomfortable talking directly about sex?" By now, her hands were gesticulating in small, tight, yet uncontrolled motions. She was positively fluttering. "And she looked _sad_ when she said it."

"Enlighten me," came the response from the man still trying to not show his amusement at the story unfolding before him.

Incredulous, Maura let out an enormous, exasperated sigh. "Really? Augh, you are such a frustrating man. It means she wants me! More than that, I think she loves me. Well… I know she loves me, but I mean, she _loves_ me. She does. She wasn't just jealous in an angry way, like something that's hers is being poached. She was _sad._ That means it's about more than just protecting a possession or the _status quo._ And do you know what she was saying at the exact moment when she showed me her sadness?"

"She was saying that she wanted me to be happy." Maura stated it emphatically, and for a wonder, there was suddenly no smugness left in her at all. "Jane wants me to be happy, to get what I need, and she is _actively_ disappointed that she can't give it to me. I think, despite all the hints I've tried to give her, that she believes I couldn't want her sexually. Which is just ridiculous. I mean, you have no idea, Dr. Sorin – Jane is… I don't know how to…"

Words failed for a moment as Maura floundered, then found her footing. "You look up at night and view the stars. They're so beautiful and so perfect, aren't they? Bright, brilliant, fascinating. You could spend your life gazing at them, trying to describe them, knowing that you can study them and love them all, feeling that all you could ever desire would be to reach up and touch them, and feel their points on your fingertips."

She sighed. "But then the moon rises, and she is completely different."

Her reverie was broken by Sorin's next question. "Tell me about this proposed joint therapy session with Jane's psychiatrist that you have mentioned." The shift felt sudden, given the words that had just left Maura, but Sorin asked as if everything should flow from one thing to the next.

"I don't really know what that's about," confessed the small woman as she reached for her water glass. "I know that joint therapy sessions usually take place in the context of couples or family therapy, but that's usually when both or all parties need to work through issues together. I'm under the impression that her psychiatrist, Dr. Dearborn, wants me there solely for Jane's benefit, not for mine or ours. Admittedly, I'm not as well versed in psychology as I am in physical medicine, so it's possible that this is not as rare a technique as I believe." She would not ask directly, lest her own session become a discussion of therapeutic tactics. "All that I've been told is that Dr. Dearborn believes it will be helpful to Jane. I don't know what has precipitated this."

"How do you feel about this session? Do you have any concerns that issues may arise that you are unwilling or not ready to discuss directly with Jane?"

Though she had an immediate answer, Maura held it for a moment to give the question due consideration. Finally, she shook her head. "I worry that Jane may be confronted with things that she may not be ready to hear yet, things that might disrupt her recovery process. I don't know that she's consciously ready to face her own feelings about me, let alone mine for her. But for my sake, I'm not worried. There is nothing of myself that I would hesitate to entrust to Jane."

"Yes, it's quite clear that you have complete trust in Jane." Sorin nodded. "Conversely, how do you feel about the possibility of finding your feelings are not, in fact, returned in kind?"

Maura's head tipped sideward, indicative of deep thought. After a long silence, she spoke. "On the one hand, I have no overt indications that Jane is generally interested in women. I've heard nothing about past relationships with women, and the only rumors at the precinct about Jane are either the standard stereotypes flung at any woman in law enforcement, or they're about me. Jane has shown general interest in men, but very little, and it's very rare in terms of specific men. She may be scarcely interested in romantic or sexual entanglements at all. She appreciates the male form, wants to eventually marry and have children – or says she does; I'm still uncertain as to whether she actually wants those things or simply feels they're expected of her – but in Massachusetts, that doesn't necessarily… Well, never mind. We're discussing the cons, not the pros."

Another deep breath, and she went on. "Jane has outdated notions of what a relationship between women would look like. Although there are also lesbian and bisexual women with those notions, it does argue somewhat strongly for a lack of experience with such relationships. Believe me, Dr. Sorin, enough women hit on Jane that if she wanted experience, she would certainly have it by now. She's not homophobic, though. I think her objection, whenever someone refers to her as a dyke or suggests she go undercover at a lesbian bar, stems predominantly from the fact that if people know or believe that she could be interested in a woman, men might stop making the effort to interest her in themselves. For whatever my impression is worth, she strikes me as mostly, but possibly not exclusively, interested in men."

Maura went on for a little longer, listing minor points that could also be interpreted as Jane not being interested in women, and then a few that argued that Jane could entertain the notion, but not with Maura. Then she fell quiet. She'd thought of all these matters before, at one time or another. Listing them all out like this, however, all at the same time, made it seem all the more unlikely that she had correctly interpreted Jane's emotions regarding her.

"Those are very good points of observation," Sorin commented as he made a few marks in his notebook. "It's clear you've entertained this line of questioning before. I would urge you to be open to all possibilities when entering into a joint therapy session with Jane. Your relationship with her is, by your own accounts, one rooted rather strongly in trust and mutual admiration. I would urge you to hold on to those factors should you engage in lines of communication that seem to counter what your hypothesis and testing has proven otherwise." It was, in a very subtle fashion, Sorin's way of saying to retrain her positive hope. "Would you like to schedule an extra session for Monday to follow up on this joint session with Jane?"

Maura sighed. Abandoning the lengthy list of pros she had composed over more time than she cared to really consider, she admitted, "It would probably be wise."

"Then, let us stop here for today, and do schedule time for Monday," he paused, considering. "If you feel the need, Maura, you know you are always welcome to suggest a joint session with me as well. Generally, I would make the suggestion to my patient, but you are often very adept at understanding your own needs. I simply want you to know that the option is there for you at your request."

Caramel curls bounced together as if engaged in play. "No, thank you. My issues are… Well, they're being managed. The only thing that I find unsettling at this time in my life is the way my best friend is hurting. Jane's feelings and needs are very time-sensitive, so they do need to be handled with care until she's reached emotional equilibrium. I just want to make sure that I don't do things that will harm her recovery from alcohol dependence. I don't think there's anything that I particularly need, at least not from you, that she needs to be here to accomplish; at least, not unless you feel you need a different perspective, or more information than what I can provide for you."

"If and when that time comes, of course we'll discuss our options." He stood, offering her a hand up in a classic, gentlemanly fashion. "Shall we go set the next appointment?"


	13. Chapter 13

The afternoon sun streamed in through the office window as Vincent Sorin settled into his accustomed place in the large, over-sized chair across from the matching one into which his patient, Maura Isles, had happily bounced and settled with a smile on her face he had not seen before.

They exchanged pleasantries as he offered tea, and he did not miss, though he did not comment on, the fact that the makeup covering the small bruise at the base of his patient's neck was wearing thin, no doubt due to the constant rubbing from the collar of her lab coat as she worked throughout the day.

Instead, in his own subtle and understated way, he handed her a cup of tea and small hand mirror he kept in the drawer of the coffee table for those patients who tended to need to double check their appearance prior to leaving his office. As he settled into his own chair, pulling out his pen and opening his notebook, he commented in an offhanded way, "My wife was apt to remind me that makeup will only make certain things disappear for so long. Time and elements, she would remind me, are never as forgiving as one would prefer." With just a hint of a smile on his face, he continued on, not breaking the flow of his words. "How was your joint session on Friday?"

Maura's lips had been pressed together as if holding back a great deal of _something,_ and when finally she let it out, it could not have been more obvious (as if the light blush and the fingers lifting to touch the subcutaneous hematoma weren't clue enough). "It was great! But can we talk about what happened before the session, too? Because that's really, really important."

She did not, however, wait for permission. "Jane was so brave! You would have been impressed, and you don't even really know her. God, she… she was like some kind of emotional gladiator, or cowboy, or superhero, or something. I can't – I'm still reeling."

"Perhaps you should start at the beginning?" He gave a reassuring smile. "What happened that brings you to say such lofty things of Jane?"

The patient took a moment to collect herself and organize her thoughts; one could just about see them being alphabetized, labeled, and put into suitable files. "As you might imagine," she began, "the session before the one I attended was a very emotional one for Jane. She kept saying it was hard, difficult, intense, tiring… but she wouldn't say why, and you know I don't pry. That's private, and knowing that she feels about privacy even more strongly than I do, I try not to intrude. But the more she talked around it, the more I thought maybe she wanted to tell me something. It was extremely stressful trying not to ask."

Maura's narrative became almost dispassionate, by necessity: she had to explain it all before she could get to the point at which she couldn't speak. "Jane said she was scared, and it turned out, she was afraid that I wouldn't like what I heard in there. She thought, she actually thought, that she could say something that would make me angry, or not want to be her friend anymore. Can you imagine?" she laughed. "I told her she could forget that idea entirely, because there was nothing that was important to her, or a part of her, that I wouldn't be able to embrace wholeheartedly. I promised I would never judge her harshly. I think I even said I loved her, but she wasn't really listening. She was extremely agitated."

"Were you able to reassure her enough for her to be comfortable moving forward to verbalize the internal thoughts that were causing such agitation?" Sorin leaned forward, removed the hand mirror from Maura's lap, and put it away.

The woman's attention briefly was distracted; she had been holding a mirror? Refocusing quickly, however, she smiled once more. "In fact, I was. Some things are easier to say in the dark, you know. Oh – did I mention that we were in bed at the time? I know you find that significant, and to be honest, I'm _really_ starting to see your point. Anyway, she asked me if I loved her, and naturally I told her that I did, but that she didn't have to tell me anything she didn't feel safe telling me. I thought… Well, whatever I thought, it didn't happen. Jane got out of the bed. That was very jarring." Momentarily, her brow furrowed with remembered disappointment and confusion. "When she came back, she turned the lights on and showed me what she'd gone to fetch. It was a family album. She started pointing out all the gay members of her family, or at least, the ones that are in relationships."

Maura leaned forward and said, very seriously, "You have no idea how much I just wanted to squeal, or groan, or… I don't know what I wanted, but sitting quietly wasn't at all what I had in mind. I really hoped I knew where she was going with that, but I couldn't be sure. Maybe she just wanted to let me know that she knew I was into her, and that she wasn't upset or grossed out by me. God, how awk-weird would that have been?" The coined word could not have been one of her own creation. She'd probably heard it from Jane. "To hear that your best friend knows you're crushing on her, in love with her, hot for her, and then to cuddle up and try to sleep? Ugh." She suppressed a shudder.

"Yes, I could understand where some discomfort may present itself in such a situation," the psychiatrist deadpanned before going back to his active listening mode.

"I know, right?" Maura agreed, as if she herself hadn't brought up the point originally. "Anyway, though, you should have seen it. Jane… She was so scared, and yet she didn't even look like she wanted a drink at all, and she didn't back down even a little bit. She just said what she felt, without trying to feel me up first to find out… Wait, that's wrong. Feel me around?" There was a long moment as the honey-haired woman searched her memory. "She didn't try to feel me _out_ to learn my feelings first. She focused on hers, without expecting anything from me at all. She just," and here her hand made a sort of diving motion to illustrate her point, "jumped right in and said she was attracted to me. It was a leap of faith, if ever I've seen one. The amazing thing – well, there are two, actually. Firstly, Jane doesn't study facial expression the way I do, or the way you do, so she truly didn't know how I felt at all. She went into it entirely blind. Secondly, Jane isn't one to talk much about her feelings. Any time she does, it's significant, but something like this? Dr. Sorin, you'd have been so impressed. I know I was."

"Clearly," he commented as he took studious notes. "Maura, I sense your excitement regarding this turn of events." At his own calm wording, Sorin stopped talking, snorted in amusement, and gave a large smile. "Though," he tilted his head to acknowledge his own point, "I think it's safe to say anyone within in a 10 foot radius would be able to do the same." It took him a few tries to regain his more professional composure before he continued on. "How did your evening that evening end, and, if it's of a nature to which you'd rather not discuss for sake of privacy, modesty, or otherwise, I want to reassure you that I am in no way suggesting that you must share."

Maura giggled. "Do you really think I would go from zero to sixty that fast? With _Jane_?" she asked rhetorically, not to mention cheekily. "She's far more important to me than that. If I just want to get off, I have been endowed with two arms that are just the right length to place my hands within reach of my primary and secondary sexual organs. No. We hugged it out and went to sleep. That's it. Not even kissing." She paused. "Though, I must say, that was the best sleep I've had in months. But no, we were both just exhausted. Thursday was a very full day."

"Hugged it out?" Sorin again smiled the more amused, less professional smile before he could catch himself. Clearing his throat, he again shook himself back into the correct mode. "Would you like to tell me anything about the joint session?"

Again, Maura gave that quick nod to suggest enthusiasm. "First of all, I really like Dr. Dearborn. She has a different personal style from yours, but I think she's just as good, and she seems to be exactly what Jane needs in a therapist. I thought she would be, and it's gratifying to know I was right. She asked good questions of me, things that helped her understand Jane more from a perspective other than Jane's."

Slowly sat forward as she remembered, forgetting to be dispassionate. "I don't really remember how it came up – Oh, wait, I do. We were discussing Jane's support system, and she mentioned her mother and how annoying she could be when trying to do nice things for Jane. It was the bunny pancakes that started it off. Angela made her bunny-shaped pancakes at the diner, and ever since then, people at work have been leaving her rabbit-themed sex toys in her desk. I'm sure you know how that went over with Jane. She's still not at ease discussing that, outside intimate settings, and apparently a therapist's office isn't quite intimate enough for her to feel comfortable. But since she was telling Dr. Dearborn about the pancakes, she asked me what I'd done with the toys. It was an offhanded question, but Jane's offhanded questions are sometimes not actually offhanded. She asks insignificant things that way, but she also asks things that way when she wants them to _seem_ insignificant. I didn't know which it was."

"I presume you answered the question with your normal amount of honesty?" Sorin said, raising an eyebrow as he waited for the remainder of the story.

Maura nodded; sex wasn't where her privacy boundaries lay. "Of course. Most of them are still in their packaging, and I'll probably keep them to give friends as gifts when they get married, divorced, to their kids when they turn eighteen, or whatever, but there's this really nice one that I thought I'd keep. It's got…" She stopped with her hand halfway through the bunny-ear imitation. "You know, that's probably irrelevant. Sorry. Anyway, Jane got very upset, and it took me several moments to figure out what kind of upset she was, and why. Apparently, masturbation is an even bigger taboo for her than partnered sex."

"That is not uncommon," he said by way of getting her to continue on.

"Really?" Maura asked, not rhetorically, then dismissed the question. She could look that up later. "Anyway, I keep the bunny in the nightstand on my side of her bed. My nightstand in my house has a different and slightly wider selection, but I didn't have anything for when I was at her place. And before you ask, yes, I've needed the toys. It's faster with them, and you know how little solitude I've had since Jane and I started co-sleeping." It was simply a collection of facts, easily discussed. "At first, I thought Jane was mad because I was using a toy that rightfully belongs to her, and I promised to get her one for herself, but she said no. Apparently, what upset her was that I was masturbating in her bed, while she was in the shower. I confess, that caught me up short for a minute. I thought she meant I should wait for her to get back after her shower. That would have been nice to hear! But no. She just… she didn't like to think about me needing sexual release. And then I thought she was really offended. Disgusted."

"How did you feel regarding that thought? What was your reaction?"

This time, Maura's "Really?" had the strong air of disappointment. "You're asking me how I felt, thinking that the woman I love was disgusted by me? Come on, Doctor." Her eyes rolled in a mild, but unmistakable, echo of Jane's third-favorite facial expression (after Badass Protector and Smirking Bitch), and then she moved on. "Nevertheless, I'd come there to be honest for Jane, and so that's what I did. She asked me why I was comfortable doing that, and I reminded her of how little time I've had for anything more extensive, and surely she was doing the same thing when I was otherwise occupied. Would you believe," she said, serious as ever, "she _hasn't?_ Well, I believed it, but I couldn't believe it, if you see what I mean. I can't even imagine how that must feel, to go that long with just _nothing_. So I promised her I'd give her a little time to herself. I volunteered to drop her off at home and go grocery shopping, and call her when I was five minutes from home."

"You know, it is my duty to occasionally ask the cliché, Maura." It was a statement. Sorin was absorbed in the story and only answering to push her to move on. "Based on what you've said of Jane, it is likely she was not receptive to that suggestion."

Maura nodded, with feeling. "Correct. Jane said she would have felt inhibited by my knowledge of her activity. That made me feel even worse, of course, that Jane wouldn't want to share any part of her sexuality with me, even the knowledge. I wondered if I'd seriously misunderstood what she'd meant when she said she loved me." The recollection of that hurt showed clearly on her face as Maura struggled against the connection between her amygdala and lachrymal glands. Only knowing the outcome of the session enabled her to shut down the automatic response and continue. "I told her I'd stop, so at least we'd both be equally… without, but she didn't want that, either. She said it had just taken her by surprise, and that even if she couldn't make me happy, that didn't mean she didn't want me to be happy at all."

Abruptly, Maura paused, needing to ascertain her psychiatrist's comprehension. "You understand what she meant, don't you? Happy means orgasms."

"Yes, I did follow that," he quietly responded.

Once she was sure that they were back on the same page, Maura continued. "That was when Jane decided to be open, and it was surpassingly helpful, because I truly wasn't sure what she wanted. She thought that I wouldn't want her, just because she's not a man. _I_ thought she just wouldn't be ready for that, at such an early stage. As it happens, we were both very wrong. _Very_ wrong. We sorted that out, and then there was very little left of the session after that, so we went home."

Maura smiled. "And then there was sex." Her eyes lit up. "Lots of sex. It was amazing. _She_ was amazing." Her voice lowered. "_We_ were amazing."

"I take it that the experience was amazing," Sorin dryly replied as he made a note in his journal. "Have the two of you discussed where you'd like to go moving forward? As in," he added for clarification, "will you tell anyone of the change in the status of your relationship any time in the relative near future?"

That faraway, entirely too easy to read smile quickly made way for concentration on the here-and-now once more. "Um. Probably? I asked, and she said she'd like to think about it. But to tell the truth, even if we didn't make a point of telling people, I don't see how it would be avoidable for everyone in our lives to know within a fairly short amount of time. Frankie is almost as observant as Jane, Tommy's got time on his hands, and Jane and I work with detectives. And I can't lie, so if anyone does think to ask, I'll have to tell them something that's true."

She took a deep breath. "And then there's Angela…"

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><p><strong>Thank you for reading! As always, we appreciate your reviews. There will be one more story in this universe. We will probably post that late next week as we must first write it. ;-)<strong>


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